Homecoming

So I have another BFF, but she's local. We'll call her Snow. I just arrived back to the maxi pad, a.k.a. my Capitol Hill bachelor apartment, from having attended her and her husband's "it's not summer" barbeque on Beacon Hill/Georgetown where I once resided.

Snow and I used to work together along with Grace at a company that placed creatives within the new media industry. Well, I'm not quite sure if you can actually call what we did "work" per se. Snow used to joke about being my career hurdle. I'm sure I was equally her's, but we can take that streetwalk down memory lane another time ...

Something felt very different about tonight's gathering. For starters, at the last gathering of theirs I was very discontent with my life. I've experienced quite a bit of loss and gone through many changes over the past year and a half. To say my life has in any way settled down would be a horrible joke, about as funny as G.W. Bush being thought to possess an ounce of integrity.

Tonight was different. It was through the words of Flora, one of our wonderful neighbors, that I realized just how much of a family I had surrounding me in my former neighborhood. I had to walk away from all of them along with my dog Tido, my partner of seven years and my beautiful view home in the woods. Walking away from a life is difficult, especially one that was so warm, familiar and as comfortable as mine was.

The beautiful thing about tonight is that I finally, after not one but two back-to-back failed relationships, the loss of my home and my dearly beloved dog, I finally feel like my whole self again. I finally feel like I can be at a social gathering of wonderful people, like the one I so thoroughly enjoyed tonight, and really connect and contribute. In return, I experienced such an incredible amount of love, joy and belonging.

It's rare, especially in these high tech times, that one can find a sense of community at all. Despite having walked away from a life I worked so hard to build and achieve, it is still with me. My dear neighbors, who are way more like a family than a community, have reminded me that home truly is where the heart is, and my heart is still there with all of them.

Anyone who thinks it's easier to say no vs. yes in this life is dead wrong. I had been saying yes to a life I was comfortable and happy with to a point, but in a very fundamental way also very miserable with. Saying no to it was the single most challenging decision I've ever made in my life. I tore off and broke painstakingly free from the shackles that bound me away from life's complete happiness, then subsequently ran the gauntlet. Here I am, 1.5 years later, nearly full circle and a whole lot wiser to say the very least.

This is my rebuilding year and a new period of expansion for my life. I plan to break ground for the construction of a new home on my Beacon Hill property by year end, and rejoin the family I had to physically wander away from to sort things out with a particular piece of my life so I could be happy and fulfilled. Guess it's all part of the process of personal growth and evolution. Sometimes one has to take a big step backward to make two leaps forward. My mama never said life would be easy or fair ...