At Loose Ends

Still looking for a new home. We find a promising apartment unit but then something arises that eliminates us from consideration – another tenant who pays 5 months in advance at the asking rate, turned down because of our pending bankruptcy, another for poor credit, yet another for our income being too high (!), two times for our income being too low.

The search goes on. The most promising opportunity was a condo owner wishing to rent out her unit while she lives out of state. She accepted our credit situation but demanded her personal belongings remain in the garage we were renting from her! That and no fresh paint and low water pressure she refused to do anything about. She refused us; we refused her as a highly poor landlord risk! This transaction works both ways.

We have other options and my bankruptcy discharge is due in hard copy from the court this week. That will improve our chances but Rocky’s credit is in need of cleaning up via bankruptcy as well.

We did have a co-housing offer in Salt Lake City, Utah but the landlord needed to move forward quickly, of course, and we didn't like the prospect of moving in winter over the high plains and even higher mountains in the dead of February! A challenge at any time of year made perilous by seasonal winter storm threats. So we declined. In addition, Salt Lake may be a wonderful place to live, but it is the capital of the Mormon Church; that’s a challenge for gay people as you no doubt are aware!

So we continue to search. The discipline we have adopted to minimize living costs and analyzing our income and budget has uncovered our ability to afford higher rents. That’s a good thing and we are adjusting our search parameters accordingly.

As it is we are half packed or stored. We have more to do but a lot of our belongings have been weeded out and we are officially downsized! Of course we could slim down further but then we don’t know what will be useful in one home as opposed to another opportunity. Best we wait a little longer before ridding ourselves of things we will not likely replace.

Meanwhile our loose ends loom ever larger: church membership, newspaper duties (all volunteer but meaningful), chamber of commerce duties, and arts community involvement. All these interactions have been important to us. And they continue to be so. But as housing options narrow down further and further and probable sites grow farther and farther away, our favorite haunts and relationships are in peril of being eliminated. That places in question what we will do in the future to maintain a productive focus on life. It also places into question how valued or not our contributions in the past have been. If they can be eliminated with a snap of a finger, just how important were they?  Same if those comfort zones in life are replaceable with a snap of a finger.

Transitory is life. Here one day and gone tomorrow. What is important now is not so in the future. And what we did in the past has less value from today’s perspective.

Always has this been so. It is a truth of our being. It may be a hard lesson to learn, but it is one in need of learning just the same.

I’ll keep you posted on what we learn just as soon as I learn what the lesson is that awaits on our doorstep – whether transitory or not!

Stay tuned for developments. Details at 10 PM!

February 19, 2014