As I’m working to extricate myself from this leased home, I notice a beast trying to hold me back. That beast is the belief that this home actually is me and without it I’m nobody and nothing. I keep thinking of a phrase used often by Ronald Reagan as he spoke of shrinking our government by “starving the beast,” by depriving it of funds. How you feel about that is your business. But it rings true to my quest of freedom from this home and the beast holding me back.
It’s easy for me to see how this warped beast thinking came to be. The house I’ve leased for 8 years is so beautiful and charming. Its location across from a 1,300-acre park and centuries-old oak tress dripping with Spanish moss is incredible. If I live here, I must be someone important, someone worthy, someone of great value. Right? So it follows that if I leave here, I leave my value behind.
Plus, this house is filled with the pleasing stuff I have chosen, selected, curated. It’s warm and welcoming and peaceful. Surely if I leave this place, I will leave behind warmth and peace.
No, no, no. I want to fully grasp that I brought myself to this house, and filled this house with my own beauty, my warmth, my sense of style, my peace. These qualities are mine because I have worked my ass off for several decades to know and appreciate myself.
So as I recognized the beast of transference (transferring my sense of self to the house) that was holding me back from taking action toward my dream, that was filling me with fear that I’d leave here with nothing inside, an empty shell, I decided on a strategy. I decided I would dismantle the house while living here, bit by bit, selling and giving away the curated possessions, living more and more in The Tiny in the back yard until there was nothing left here of me.
It’s working! I’m starting to see this house as a nice chunk of American soil topped with a collection of building materials from the 1940s. There is wood framing, and electrical wiring, and iron plumbing throughout the walls. There is wood lath and plaster and moldings. Some is not good, like the peeling paint I never complain about and the worn linoleum kitchen floor and backyard that is all concrete, and the persistent possums and wasps.
It’s a house. It was here before I was born. It will be here after I die. And when I leave this place, none of me will remain. I’ll take it all with me: the style, the peace, the joy in being alive on the planet.
I have successfully starved the beast. The pull has dissolved. I gave my landlady notice today. I’m moving on.