Circus Tent

Change is the only constant.

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

“When do you move in?” my friend Caroline asked me on a FaceTime call.

“I can start moving my stuff in on the 14th. I will do it in stages. I need to house sit until the 26th, so I have time to get situated. I still have to empty my storage unit in Gaylord and get furniture,” I said, trying not to let my mind create a Moving To Do List at that moment. “I bought a bed.”

“Ooh, I look at moving in on Valentine’s Day as a good omen,” Caroline said.

“I know. And I found the apartment the day before my birthday.”

“Yes! I think you are going to love it there!” Caroline effused.

“I think so, too.”

I have signed a year lease on an apartment in the Lafayette Park neighborhood of Detroit. Last week, I sprung my pottery, the other half of my winter clothes, some shoes, and my favorite pots and pans from my storage unit when I was in Gaylord. I wept when I saw some of my favorite things, things I looked at for years in the home I shared with my kids, things I had forgotten about, and was so grateful I had the presence of mind to keep last year when my state of mind was less than optimal. Things that I have already started mentally putting on the walls in my new place.

When I walked into the apartment that will be my home for the next 12 months, I knew. I had been waiting for that feeling, that knowing when I walked into a place that signaled to me “This is it.” The day before, I looked at a place that fit the category of I-can-do-this-for-6 months, so I had that going for me. But when I walked into this place and saw the view, I felt relaxed and expansive, and my jaw dropped a little bit as I said “WOW” under my breath. When the leasing agent confirmed the rent, I saw nothing but green lights and didn’t want to overthink it. I put in my application without even knowing if it had a dishwasher or not. (It does, thank goodness.)

Yet, when it came to signing the lease a week later, I hesitated. A year? In one place? Ugh…was I ready to do that? Part of me was resisting.

At this time last year, I would have given my mouth full of teeth and two fingernails to know where I was going to live for the next twelve months. I was panicked. Terrified. Pan-ICKED! I had that out-of-control feeling like being tossed around under a wave in the ocean most of my waking hours. I was a mess. I wanted something, anything to cling to, anything to provide some sense of security and safety. A home—a place for me and my stuff seemed like the only thing that would assuage the discomfort that plagued me. It seemed like the only balm and antidote for my panic.

I couldn’t have known it then, but I was wrong.

My day-to-day internal and external lives bear very little resemblance to those of a year ago. Constants remain like my important relationships, my minimal wardrobe, my job, and my car. I feel so different than I have for decades that I wonder whose life I have dropped into. It’s weird. It’s not Scott Bakula/Quantum Leap weird, where I look into the mirror and see an 11-year-old boy in a 1950s baseball cap, yet even my physical reflection looks different to me.

Over my nomadic months of 2024, my tolerance for change and uncertainty expanded. It grew to a level I could not have thought possible. It had to. I arrived in Austin in May and felt so Topsy Turvey that I needed to lie on the floor of my Airbnb and cry—the only thing I could think of to ground myself. I couldn’t look ahead very far. I couldn’t problem solve or plan beyond my next location, and over time, I became comfortable with a level of certainty that didn’t extend beyond thirty-to-forty-day chunks. I settled in, out of necessity, to the reality that I was fine, safe, and secure, despite my ever-changing living situation. Walking the Camino shortened my plan ahead time frame to thirty-to-forty-hour chunks, often less. And I was still fine, safe, and secure. I would even go so far as to say I looked forward to the change, saying yes to each city’s invitation for me to explore and enjoy. Change was not the enemy I thought it was. Fighting it was futile; fearing it was fruitless.

With all change comes loss. If change is inevitable, then so is loss. A new chapter can’t start without the end of the other. With loss comes grief, and part of me is grieving the end, and the loss of my nomadic year.

I grieve the end of the freedom, the extended time with friends—new and old, the possibility, the adventure, the growth, and the calm my gap year brought. I continue to grieve the loss that set my gap year in motion. I carried that grief like a steamer trunk filled with rocks with me from Austin to Pittsburgh to Virginia to Detroit to Switzerland and through Spain to Philadelphia back to Pittsburgh and to my landing place of Detroit. The load lightened along the way. It is more like a fanny pack now, easier to manage, and I look forward to the day when it is the size of a coin purse.

My new home is in a type of building that I have never lived in before—the kind with an elevator, a common room with a super duper coffee machine, and a gym. I am close to places that I look forward to exploring—Eastern Market, Riverfront, Belle Isle, Dequindre Cut, and all the cool coffee shops that keep popping up on my Instagram feed. I look forward to getting some space in a community garden to grow tomatoes. I look forward to creating a community and making friends. I look forward to finding a job I love. I look forward to seeing my favorite things on the wall and in my kitchen. I look forward to sleeping in my own, new, comfy bed.

My gap year expanded my tolerance for change, widened my world, and stretched my mind, allowing it to hold a three-ring circus of seemingly disparate and contradictory thoughts and emotions. My insides feel as expansive as an enormous Circus Tent, where excitement and grief, joy and sadness, fear and trust can co-exist and do their thing under the Big Top like jugglers, trapeze artists, clowns, and lion tamers. I discovered courage I didn’t know I had. I deepened friendships. I went to therapy regularly. I experienced gratitude and equanimity and joy and awe by the truckload. I made a pilgrimage through Spain. I laughed and cried in earnest. I saw things, experienced places, and met people that made my heart sing. I fell in love with my life.

It is no wonder I hesitated to sign on the dotted line and mark the end of an adventure that gave me so much.