“Joy dials us into the world around us. Our attention is right there, our hearts are open, our minds are open, and our motivation is to know what is true.”
Spoiler alert: I haven’t found it, but I’m still searching, and I know, I will find it.
Over the past several months, in the midst of the dreaded pandemic, Laurel and I began the planning and preparing for a move from our home of 14 years in Georgia to Ohio. I made the decision to make a job change, within WIKA, and Laurel, as usual, was willing to stay by my side as I went off looking for the next windmill.
Fast forward to the last few months as we began the official, and hard, transition. We put our house up for sale, and as has been the case lately, it sold in a day. We had that immediate reaction of great! Our house sold! Shit! Our house sold! We had about a month to get our move planned, get rid of excess furniture, clothes and stuff. Every day was spent working on getting all of the work done to prepare to vacate our home.
The hard part was that we just weren’t ready, and we didn’t realize, we just weren’t ready. On one hand, it was a lot of hard work. On the other hand, it was ripping us apart emotionally. We had never lived in one home for this long, and we had fallen in love with our home, our neighborhood, our church, our yoga studio, everything. We spent a lot of time transferring those feelings to our dogs, Little Bit and Daisy, as they kept trying to figure out where all the furniture was going, and why everything that
The day came when we had to leave, and no surprise, we both cried. I had never imagined this would be so hard. But we never imagined how hard the next steps would be.
We couldn’t leave Georgia yet, so we couldn’t make our move to Ohio. I had a commitment for Confirmation Sunday to be there for my confirmand, Tucker Phillips, and I would never miss that. And our son Sean and his fiancée Chandler were coming to visit over Thanksgiving (another spoiler alert, they never made it, due to the pandemic).
We moved into an Airbnb for three weeks, and it started off badly from the outset. We chose the house because it was pet friendly, and we were supposed to have it to ourselves. When Laurel entered the front door, she could hear dogs barking. She came back outside and called the owner. The owner lived downstairs with her two dogs. We thought, it’s three weeks, how bad could it be?
It was that bad. Our dogs would hear her dogs and bark. Her dogs would hear our dogs and bark. It was more than that though. For whatever reason, Laurel and I, and the dogs, never seemed to feel comfortable there. We could never put our finger on it. The furniture wasn’t comfortable. The neighborhood wasn’t the nicest neighborhood. There were a lot of big dogs in the neighborhood, and each time when we’d take the dogs for a walk, if Little Bit saw or heard one of those big dogs, she’d want to head back home. I spent each week in Ohio, and Laurel had to deal with all of this. Every day when I’d call her, she’d cry. Now, Laurel has always been the rock in our marriage, so this was not like her, she has handled everything during our 38 years together. I’d ask her what was wrong, and the best way she could put it was from a book she had been reading, and the one line from the book:
“Nothing awakens feelings of deep terror like the experience of absolute disconnection from others.”
We not only had left our home, but we had left all of our connections behind, and nothing felt comfortable or safe to Laurel anymore.
After we made it through those three weeks, we moved into a hotel for five days, and our plan had been to drive to Ohio after those five days and move to a new hotel in Ohio. As much as we dreaded the idea of having our dogs in a hotel, it actually went pretty well. They loved the king-sized bed, and they enjoyed the room much more than the house we had been in.
For once I got a good idea, and instead of going to Ohio, we made a side trip to my Mom’s home in North Carolina, and I left Laurel and the dogs there for a week while I went to Ohio. But, of course, this didn’t go smoothly either. Just as we made it into North Carolina, we stopped at a rest stop. When we got back into our car, the battery was dead. We had to call Roadside Assistance on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and wait patiently as we waited for someone to come give us a jump. The whole time we stressed and worried, what if it’s more than the battery? What if we have to be towed? We had two dogs and all of the stuff we could carry with us in the vehicle, where will we find a hotel out in the middle of nowhere that also somehow takes dogs? Luckily, it was only a dead battery, and we were on our way.
We were also almost out of gas at that point, and so we had to stop, and of course keep the car running, so we didn’t have a dead car again. As we stopped at a gas station, Laurel insisted on checking the trunk to make sure everything was still there. I started losing my mind, where could it have possibly gone? I started storming off, walking to ? Yes, where was I walking to…
As we got back in the car, and Laurel sat there crying, I started yelling “What has happened to you? Why are you like this?” Laurel answered, “Everything is back there. Everything we have is back there. We can’t lose that.” Immediately for some reason, a sense of calm came over me, and I said, as I pointed to Laurel and me, “No. This is everything. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is you and me.”
The week at my Mom’s home went great for Laurel and the dogs, and also for my Mom. Laurel, Little Bit and Daisy got to celebrate my Mom’s 92nd birthday with her. And the next weekend we were off to Ohio for another 18 days or so in a hotel. This hotel experience hasn’t been nearly as positive as the previous hotel stay, but that wasn’t the most difficult part. I started unraveling.
As the last few months have unfolded, and we got busier and busier, I moved away from those activities that grounded me and kept me at peace. I stopped watching our church services online. I stopped attending the Forum, our Adult Education classes online. As most of our worldly possessions moved without us, I quit doing our book club online, I didn’t have the books. I quit attending my Small Group meetings from my former church online. Finally, when we left Georgia, I had my final yoga classes, which really hurt, since that was one of the last “in person” activities I was able to participate in. And the worst, and I anticipated the most painful, I had my last session with Hailey. I had spent close to a year and a half with Hailey, she had made a huge impact on me and helped me transform myself dramatically, and now, I would have to miss those weekly meetings of grounding and bringing my life into perspective.
I gradually became grumpier and grumpier, and I would get angry over all the little things, and really angry over the big things. Many of these are “first world problems”, I’m tired of wearing the same clothes out of the same suitcase for the past seven weeks. I’m tired of living out of a hotel room, or worse, for the past seven weeks. I’m tired of eating crappy food for the last seven weeks. Back to the story above about the dead battery and stopping for gas, when we stopped, there was a homeless couple begging for money at the gas station, so yes, I have little to be complaining about. But, I couldn’t seem to help it.
And the big things. We couldn’t find a house. The housing market in Columbus is completely insane, and it took forever to find a home. We finally did, but it was really painful. We’ve had difficulties on our mortgage and with wiring money, and in both cases, it was with the bank we’ve been doing business with for many years. In this day and age, it really shouldn’t be this hard but it was.
As noted, in many ways, this shouldn’t have been a surprise that I was losing my way, my focus. The only activity I had that was grounding me was reading Rolf Gates’ “Meditations on Intention and Being” (the quote at the beginning is from this book) and reading the Bible in the morning. As a side note, my choice on Bible readings didn’t help much though either, I have been going through the Bible this year, and I’m currently on the Old Testament and the prophets. Not always the most uplifting stories from the Bible.
Just when I was growing tired of being even around myself and treating my small little family of Laurel, Little Bit and Daisy badly, God intervened. As I had an e-mail exchange with my friends from the Forum, I made a comment about not being there anymore or something like that, and Chuck Achuff suggested I teach one of the classes in December. The Forum was studying Adam Hamilton’s “Incarnation”. I was somewhat shocked, and hadn’t really thought of attending, let alone teaching, but I said yes. I’m not sure if you have read any of Adam Hamilton’s books before, but I don’t think anyone could feel badly after reading Adam Hamilton. And Incarnation didn’t disappoint, there were so many meaningful insights that helped bring me back to who I am and to focus on what is important in life. The Light of the World. The Word of God. Joy.
“If you can calm the raging sea, you can calm the storm in me.”
I also started taking some ownership for myself of bringing myself back to life. I started running on the treadmill at the hotel, and listening to contemporary Christian music. Since they are practicing safety, you have to sign up for the exercise room, and you have it to yourself. So I was singing loud and singing proud as I ran, and thankfully, hopefully, no one could hear me singing. At least for their benefit… And one last thing, I noticed on the treadmill, three little buttons, they said, “Quick Start”, “Pause” and “Cool Down”. I used the last two as metaphors for myself, and as I ran and sang, I would stare at the last two, and try to focus on pausing and cooling down.
This won’t be a classic Christmas for us. We should be in our new home by Christmas, barely, and there will be no presents, no tree, no decorations. But as we all know, that’s not Christmas. I’ve come to realize, as the Grinch did, maybe Christmas means a little bit more. Christmas is so much more. The Light of the World. The Word of God. Joy.
“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”
