I'm not sure why this phrase popped into my head this morning as I was out for my walk, but it seems to have something to do with my search for a new place to live. Lately three people have become central to my waking hours: my financial advisor, my real estate agent, and my mortgage broker. The latter two are new additions to my life.
All of this center's around my wish to find a new home where I can nestle in and enjoy my "retirement". The process is astonishingly complex, at least to those of us who haven't spent our adult lives acquiring and discarding residences. So far the procedures have left me with a sense of pessimism and futility, as if I'm looking for Shangri-La in the middle of an industrial zone. I'm feeling a little bit like a rat in a maze, where the people who surround me are checking in frequently to see if I've found the right pellet, indeed any pellets, that would induce me to continue with my efforts, all the while reminding me, if unintentionally, how little I am bringing to the table.
I am being encouraged by some of my friends to see this as an adventure and a chance to have some fun, but I am not feeling the love. In fact this feels like a task located somewhere in between doing my taxes and getting dental work. Most of them seem to have planned for this eventuality, and have made the kind of financial arrangements that have secured their sheltering requirements. I on the other hand, feel like I'm out of sync with my life cycles. Taking on a mortgage seems more appropriate to when you are starting out rather than winding up. And it's a lonely proposition with no one to share the hopes and anxieties the process raises. It seems to have little to do with the things that really matter.
Hang in there, Pilgrim. You are doing the hard work. All of us who only want the best for you are just birdsong ... listen to your Poet as he calls you forward, faintly now but with insistence.
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