Homeless

Originally posted 11 Apr, 2008.

I'm starting to panic. One month from now I will be out of job & house, & I have no replacements lined up. I get online to look for employment & for rentals, but haven't had much luck, & now I find myself starting to have attacks of anxiety that grow as I search the web. I get tightness in my chest, & nausea, & my breathing is too fast, & I'm borderline crying, & I just think, " I want to go home." Problem is, I haven't got one. And the more apartments I look at online, the more sure I am that I'll never find one. You see, home isn't a place, it's a feeling. It's where you feel safe, nurtured, centered -- where you feel that you belong. Some people find that through family - spouses, children - some through a career or life's work. For others, it may well be a physical place - a house, or a community. I have always felt rootless, lacking my center, my lee in the storm. I have tried to build an identity through my belongings, so that as long as I have them, I am home. But, though I am strongly tied to my stuff, it is not enough. And now, with my stuff all in storage, no physical dwelling to claim, no career or path to identify with, no family or community to cling to, I long for a home to call my own. I am tired of being a tumbleweed. A tumbleweed is dead, lifeless, fruitless. A tree needs roots to grow; it needs something it can hold onto to keep itself balanced as it stretches to the sky. I may seek to find groundedness within myself, but I am too unsteady inside. I feel that I am perched precariously, & it's taking all my attention not to fall. So, I'm starting to panic, & each day it grows worse. I wish that finding my center was as easy as clicking my heels together & whispering, "there's no place like home."