Having to Keep it Simple

[SimonSays]

I’ve been reluctant to bring more of my possessions here. I believe it is because the more things I have the more it seems like I live here, and I'm not sure I do. Obviously I am here; this is where I am, but I don't know if it is my home, and if I bring more things into it, it just makes it more likely I will stay. And I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't know if I’m ready to accept that.

There are things that make my life easier. It has taken me time to get even a few of them. I was here four months before I got my laptop. I just couldn't accept overburdening myself so that I wouldn't be able to walk away. Not knowing how things would go, I felt I'd have to go many times, and struggled when I realised I couldn't act on it.

While I know that technically I don't have to take anything I can’t carry, which wouldn't be the first time I've walked away with only what I have on my back. It's harder without certain ‘essential’ stuff, and it makes no sense to get alternatives when I already have what I need somewhere else.

It's a two-hour journey by bus to visit my ex-neighbour, and not something I can do often, but it's nice to get a few things I let go of without expecting to ever see them again. It's like going into my own personal flea market and finding everything is useful. I’d even forgotten about some, so I’m surprised when I discover I have them.

I don't have much stuff, but what I do have forms part of my simplicity, and it actually makes it more complicated to have to adjust when I’ve already found what works for me. And yet, the things I have here, I feel more attached to, because they support me and I benefit from having them. It makes it easier. And I need things easier. I need it to be simple. I know how important it is to make it that way.

 

[Aspychata]

Sometimes things represent snippets of time to me so l will keep or let go of things because if that.

I let go of things recently because l felt uncomfortable having to call out something that didn't feel right. And truthfully, l didn't like being in that position of feeling uncomfortable. So now those things are gone and l don't feel quite as uncomfortable.☺

 

[tree]

@SimonSays
"...it seems like I live here, and I'm not sure I do.
Obviously I am here; this is where I am, but I don't know if it is my home..."

What is the situation, objectively speaking?
Somehow you have living space in two locations.

Did you move in with someone?
Or move away from someone?
Or move to a place and another person also vacated a previous
spot where you both resided?

Do you own either place?

It sounds like the previous location is serving as a storage facility
while giving you time to adjust to the new place. Or, conversely,
you're keeping possessions which aren't particularly essential at
the old place in order to feel safe. Like you don't have to fully
commit to the new location (yet?).

What's going on?

 

[SimonSays]

Thank you for asking, @tree.

My ex elderly neighbour allowed me to store a few things in the back of her closet. Some were things from the past. Some from the present. Most of which I could not take with me. I had to decide what I needed, and had she not been there, I would have had to let the rest go.

They are only things. I never used to be so attached. They were meant to go back in a van when I found one. So I left them with her when I became homeless. I let go of the idea I would ever see them again.

And it took a while to decide what I'd need, what I could carry, what I should carry.

A few months later I found this room, and after three months here, I made my way back to her to collect a few things. I didn't want much, and much was my mum's.

I want to be settled. I need to be still. I wanted to close the door and not have to open it. Not have somebody just walk in because they had a right to do so. My own space. With as little material responsibility as I could make.

So I found a room, the only one I could have, and it's far away from her, with five others, in a living situation I'd never been in before. And tried to make it work, make it into home where I feel comfortable, and so I made it as comfortable as I could. It's not been easy, and I'm still challenged by the situation, because the idea of a van still exists.

And while a van gives me solitude and isolation, it also creates weight and responsibility. It would become my home, where I have all things to hand. Wherever I go my home comes with me. I can never be homeless again. And I have tried to make it happen, and then had to walk away. The path of least resistance has been this room. It still is. And it still can be...

I just don't know if it should be.

 

[Aspychata]

Aren't we nomads, constantly doomed to walk the face of the earth?

With increasing age, this is no longer desirable. Now l just think in terms of my final resting spot to lay my head down and surrender all but my spirit to the dirt beneath me.

There may exist a small possibility of my chance to live near the ocean and it's a very scary proposition however, it totally passes my current proposition of my tiny home and the single males that live near me.

 

[SimonSays]

With increasing age, this is no longer desirable. Now l just think in terms of my final resting spot to lay my head down and surrender all but my spirit to the dirt beneath me.

But that only works if you are at peace with what supports you. If you own your own home, or have somewhere to live and can do so without fear of loss. A pension, an income, something certain, as certain as anything can be, so that you can let go and just be who you are as you retire from life.

 

[Aspychata]

Sometimes we have to make it work such as you are finding out with current status of a home with others.

 

[SimonSays]

I know how to be simple. Maybe better than most. I can let go of what I won't need even when I still need it. I can accept things many would not tolerate. This may be a good thing, I can't say for sure. But what I've noticed is that in accepting, I settle, and while I want to be settled, and I have to be somewhere, I'm not sure I'm in the right place.

But this is not unusual for me. I've been in the wrong place before. I see it as a challenge. Allow what is to be. And if I can, I grow, evolve into a freer and more tolerant human being.

I think I do better when I live alone, and in a beautiful natural place, and I have done before, and yet I find myself here, in precisely the opposite of that. And I adjust and adapt, and come up with ideas that make it work better for me.

If my situation was as I could imagine, being in my perfect scenario, which I have experienced before, instead of just being content and at peace, my mental health suffered, and things that didn't bother me before began to.

There was no escaping myself. So maybe I should just be grateful to have somewhere. We all need somewhere to be. Not everyone gets to choose where that is or be exactly where they'd choose.

Many are worse off than me. And yet everything is relative. They probably couldn't live my life. And I probably couldn't live theirs. And maybe neither of us would want to. We all have our own worlds. I'm just not sure which one is mine.