summertime sadness

(life lessons.)


9/2/13- it's tuesday.
the last four days a tornado of tantalizing dreams roared through our lives,
passed through
tempting us
with our hearts' dearest wishes,
and then leaving nothing but devastation and debris.
truly.

last thursday night a family friend posted a real estate listing on fb-

it took me a few moments to realize that i wasn't breathing.

ty got home from work and we ogled the 

house porn over and over (and over) again-

photo from here...click to see more fotes.

it was decided: we would make an offer the next morning and put our house on the market. i haven't slept since.

when i was hanging with mackenzie at the house, last summer. 

this was huge. ty never even wants to talk about moving, it's not something that's financially responsible at the moment (thank heavens i married a person with both feet on the ground)...for us to both decide on this plan filled me with pure euphoric joy. 

we're we leaving suburbia? 

was this our great and holy exodus from the sea of despair?

was i dreaming?

this house is placerville legend. i would swim here as a girl. ty and i even tried to have our wedding reception here. my dear friends were renting and caring for it for the last year, so i was able to visit it frequently!

the pictures in the ad do not serve it well. 

this place is an effing dream. come. true. and we were making an offer.

cece and mackenzie sit under the 100 year old walnut tree in the front.

 in my mind/heart i was already freed. we, together, we're drawing our map to Sanctuary, to bees and milk goats, to mature pines and the cluck of chickens, children playing freely on the land.

i was saying goodbye to all of my safe and fortifying spaces i had discovered in roseville in the last 2 1/2 years, wistfully roaming though the house, even feeling nostalgic, seeing that we had finally succeeded in making it feel like home.
but i was burning.
for so long those feelings of wanting to leave have been
restrained
in order to cope, and i let them loose
like
wild
stallions.
(i'm serious, cliches aside.)
we prepped the house, scrubbed, took down prayer flags and that atrocious thrifted painting of edgar allen poe. we had showings. we set the selling price to ensure we'd be in escrow in a week.
it. was. happening.

we knew, of course, that there were others interested, other offers. we said not to get our hopes up. we said it was a slim chance-- none of that prep matters.

making flower essences in the airy country kitchen, last summer.

we got a call today saying the owner was going with another offer. it's been said that the owners thought hard over this, they know us, (OLD family friends) they wanted the new owners to have that connection....but in the end the cash offer was chosen. (no-duh. i think i'm trying to make myself feel better by thinking we ever had a chance.) it doesn't matter and towns are small.


it's hard not to be bitter. i am entitled to nothing. cash is cash.  but i feel like something was taken from me and my family... my dreams, my departure. it's hard not to wish termites, to dwell in sour grapes, because in the end i want all to be able to find fulfillment and live their dreams....but what happens when theirs end mine? how could these newcomers know that i've known and wanted this house for years?

i've never cried so hard or so much in my life.
an ancient surge of motionless depression wells up within.
ty says to move on, i'm grieving what could've been.

"i'm wild! i'm seriously wild! i can't live here anymore!" i cried at ty through my tears.

what kids do when they're outside: teddy, willow, autumn, wendy, play for HOURS in the puddle. he played at grandma's while ty and i scoped out the house with the agent.

tonight, out of anguish, grief,
i jumped on my bike and ran suburbia a-muck-
i was supposed to be leaving.
i'm still here. i'm still here.
 i tell myself that the universe has a plan, that there is no coincidence, but that's empty self-soothing talk to a girl who will come up with less cash.
i'm not leaving.

the sunset, marbled from a blessed day of fortunate rain
was truly mystical.
the universe painted a rainbow
i'm quite certain that i'm the only one in roseville who looked toward
the heavens and saw it-

(photo of burby rainbow and me 2 years ago, from another bike trip fueled by panic and grief... they cleanse the heart.)

it promised me nothing,
only beauty despite pain,
so,
everything.


how do you cope with soul-shattering sadness?
xoxo