I don't own a house

Not any more.  I've had four.  I had no choice over what happened to them but I no longer miss them or the social context of property ownership.  They were a burden I can do without, in so many ways.

The western world places a great deal of emphasis on property ownership as an indicator of wealth.  Sadly, as we have seen in Spain with mortgage suicides, property is also an indicator of the sort of debt that most people simply can't comprehend.  Bricks and mortar should never be considered so valuable that someone would take their own life because of it.

Around the world people are divested of their houses for so many reasons - war, natural disasters, financial strife, greed.  It's only when you no longer have something that you once valued that you really start to question just what is of value.

To me, now, a house is simply a building that shelters the things I hold dear.  Home is being surrounded by photos and books and music and people I love and my furry friends - all the things I can take with me wherever I choose to be.

At this point in my life I choose to rent, I choose to have the freedom to move if I want, I choose not to have the mortgage or the maintenance or the stress. 

I may never again own a house - that will be my choice.

Finding me

I found a book today whilst surfing the ‘net – Steve Olsher’s “ Journey To You: A Step-By-Step Guide to Becoming Who You Were Born to Be”.  Since I’ve never really found “me”, I skimmed it, and downloaded it (yes, free!) and am now reading it.  Maybe it can’t find me for me, but maybe it’s a step in the right direction for me finding myself.

At 56 I am uncomfortable with my life… well, what there is of it, because what others have seems to have completely by-passed me.  Yes, I have a wonderful husband – much luckier second time around, I wasted so much life on the first time.   Yes I have a beautiful daughter – but somewhere along the way I lost my son and my grandchildren.  Yes, I have a job I enjoy and a (mostly) good boss – but I know I am better than my employer gives me credit for or pays me for.

So what can I do about it?  I am not prepared to cruise.  I’m not a cruiser and never have been.  While I have been trying to find my true self for many, many years I have taken so many different turns, usually dead-ends, because they weren’t “me”.  I know I have valuable insights to offer.  I know I can make a difference to people.  I just don’t know how.  Yet.  But I can visualize myself standing in front of an audience and imparting some of my knowledge and experience and not feeling like they’re not interested, and not sweating buckets because I’m scared.  I will get there because I know I can and because I must.

I just don’t know how.  Yet. 

I’ve written off and on for years.  I’ve always loved words and I usually think I can do them justice.  I started this blog as a sort of “Dear Diary”.  It was never intended to be a public vehicle for my private thoughts, and yet I posted it on the internet.  Maybe I hoped that one day someone would “discover” it.  It’s been held up along the way by my “real life”.  Losing my grandchildren when their parents took them back to NZ, problems and self-doubt with my post-graduate study, problems with my husband also wondering who he is and where he’s meant to be.   Perhaps the “discovery” of my writings will never happen, but my thoughts are out there in space and one day in the not too distant future I will have found for myself a road to take that doesn’t entail dead ends but leads instead to who I was born to be.

Watch out world!