The Lights and Buzz, Part Two
I wrote this post over a year ago and thought about it again yesterday.
When we first moved to Charlotte we were full of the uncertainty that can sometimes come with settling down for the first time. "Is this it? What's next?" Like I've mentioned before, I had gotten so used to planning for the next thing that I found just sitting in the present moment to be a bit of a challenge.
And yet, through my parents splitting up and moving, my mom's second cancer diagnosis and subsequent surgeries, and my own health issues, somehow I managed to find a way to put roots down. To get up in the morning and brew coffee and start my day and make lunch for my husband and find friends and schedule regular dentist appointments. I sit at my desk and write, and twice a day I walk down the hall and let our neighbor's dog out. On Fridays Rob and I take Ender to Atherton Market for coffee at our favorite place, and on Sundays we sleep in and then watch a documentary while we eat breakfast.
It's been almost two years and we have managed to create a life here.
The other day I felt a random compulsion to check Craigslist for rental houses. Rob and I talk a lot about moving into a house when our lease is up, but that's not until August so every time we look we always remind ourselves that it's too early. And I fall in love with every property that has more light and a bigger kitchen than our current apartment, so I push the laptop away and say "let's just wait."
But sure enough there we were the next day, walking through a house and picturing ourselves living in it. The kitchen with a window over the sink and the third bedroom where you could put a desk or maybe a baby; and the fenced-in backyard where Ender could run.
We magically managed to wrangle up a summer sublease for our apartment and I was practically starting to pack when the landlord texted me the next morning to say that he had already rented the house to whoever saw it earlier that day before. And I cried in my car, over this house that I visited once and fell in love with the idea of even though it's in a neighborhood I don't really like that much.
We've spent two years focusing on the present, but I can feel the tide coming in and pulling me back out to what's next, and next, and next after that.
“I’m coming home to the lights and buzz
Streets look the same, still nothing’s as it was
This place is paradise I’m sure, here’s my reservation
I’ve gotten lost here once before
Inside a good vibration ”