On The Brink

sanctuary Jul 19, 2016

Well heckity pie, just when it seemed life was finally settling in to something lovely, I find myself almost homeless.

No really. Homeless. Not quite on the streets. But one week away from completion on my little house and a few weeks away from eviction here in the bungalow because the landlord has finally confirmed that he wants to move a relative in. And oh how very, very stressful it is to suddenly not have the certainty of home anymore. And the irony of being the very someone who has long preached about why it matters…

My heart is breaking now. My neck hurts. The strain is telling on me and Ste. And finding another house is proving almost impossible while he is between jobs. We need time that we simply don’t have.

I wish I could write eloquently about how it feels to be in such crisis. To succinctly capture the kind of tension unique to it. I wish that I could set aside the angst and bring to BrocanteHome a dispassionate review of how this could have happened: whether it was a case of bad decisions or bad luck. I wish I could go home.

Sometimes strength fails a person even when intellectually they understand that the crisis is not quite what it seems. We can live in Stes’ Mums in the interim. Or stay in Kaths’ spare bedroom. I can spend the Summer at Helen’s. Even the lady next door has announced that if all else fails we can live in her garage! And of course we will be fine. I know that. Of course I do. But I suppose this feels like failure on a gargantuan scale. It is threatening the peace and joy that was our relationship and leaving my child looking simultaneously strained and he tells me, excited about being about to embark on a huge adventure.

Perhaps then it is an adventure. Yes! Please let me re-frame this as the biggest adventure of my life! Didn’t Nancy Levin say Jump and Your Life Will Appear? What were her thoughts on those of us who are pushed??

So what’s next? Patience and a refusal to panic are key. Though I seem to have been blessed by the slowest, feet-dragging home-buyer in the land, my house will complete in a week or two and I will have the equity to perhaps bribe a landlord with the offer of upfront payment on a house. Someone’s generosity means that Ste will be back in work by mid August and then the world – or at least this part of West Lancashire, where competition for rented property is fierce, will be our oyster. Though damn it, I think you should know that I can barely stomach oysters.

In the meantime I am haunting property sites and spending inordinate amounts of time waiting for slippery letting agents to return my calls. I am watching The Gilmore Girls from the very beginning. Sipping gin in this gravel covered garden. Tomorrow I am catching the train to Oxford to go set up our lovely new vintage concession in Chipping Norton and at the weekend I will start the process of packing our life up all over again.

This too must be endured. This too will pass. Hold my hand though won’t you? I need all your strength right now.