After months and months of feeling like I was merely marking time, this weekend has felt a lot more like actual living. I had flashes of life during the drought, like the Bonfire nights, but nothing sustained for more than half a day at a time. The last three days have been crammed with activity and conversation, with laughter and meaning, finally sustaining that feeling of living with purpose. I told the man this morning that I feel like we are already back, meaning it feels like we already live here again. I don't think I understood exactly how I meant it, as the words were emerging from my lips. Now that I reflect on it, what I really was trying to express was that now that we are here, I actually feel like I am alive again. I'm starting to step out of the stress and depression that clouded the last year, and I'm ready to engage the world again. I'm prepared to make a lot of changes, some serious sacrifices, to prolong this feeling. A lot of things would have to change to come out here, and there are a lot of creature comforts I would have to shake off, at least at first, to afford to move back. I'm not too proud to admit that I love to watch television, for example, but that fancy satellite tv is the first item on the man's chopping block when he looks for unnecessary expenses. If I want to live here, I have to be willing to let that hundred bucks a month go. I also am expecting to downgrade the curb appeal of my house, at least at first. I'm willing to buy an ugly house in an up and coming neighborhood, if it has decent bones and no major structural or electrical flaws. It all comes down to motivation, and I am starting to feel a fire smoldering underneath me. The wanderlust is strong in this girl.
There has been a recurring Roman theme today. In two very different conversations (different participants, in different cities), I heard references to the appeasement tactic known as "bread and circuses." Neither conversation was particularly optimistic about the success of such tactics as they are being employed currently in modern society. Both seemed appropriate comparisons to make in context, as we discussed the realities of our class-stratified economy and the potential outcomes. And neither had any relation to the intentionally Roman-inspired seasonal decorating done by my daughter and her boyfriend this evening, who covered their saturnalia tree in Roman red and gold while we visited with them. Perhaps I should have a platter of grapes as I recline on a chaise and blog. It would keep with the theme.
We made sure we made time for special friends of ours tonight. They have been our chosen family for almost 24 years, at times our housemates, at times our saviors, and at times the people who knocked sense into us when we needed it most. They have been working so hard for so many years, always saying someday they would like to leave the stressful world for a simpler life structure in a distant place. They finally hit the point where it made sense not to put it off any longer. Their "someday" is now. They are radically downsizing, simplifying everything, and pulling up stakes to move farther west, to the utopia they dreamed about for years. It's not a life I would have chosen for myself, but seeing how excited they are about the change, I can only be happy for them. They've promised they'll keep coming back for visits, so if we do move here, we will probably end up seeing them more often than when we were the ones who wandered off. But it was time for them. They're leaving it all behind to focus on what they love the most: each other. Bravo, my dears. Carpe diem.
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