Running in Place

In January, my tenants moved out and I found myself back in my home in Los Angeles to facilitate its sale and plan for the next chapter of my life.  Being here in the place I started when I began my transition feels a lot like running in place.  I know this is a necessary part of my process, which calls for me to fully let go of my home in order to make room for and move on with my new life, but it feels like a step backwards.  The most frustrating part of it has been the tendency to fall back into old routines and  feeling drawn to those old wants, needs, and desires that, in reality, I no longer identify with.  It has been difficult being a changed person in an old, familiar set of circumstances; ones I thought I'd left behind.

Relinquishing my home has been a surprisingly emotional process. It is a place I used to see a future for myself and an investment that represented safety and security.  Because I no longer see my future or security here, I am no longer able to connect to the home that I love.  It's like breaking up with someone you will always hold a place in your heart for, maybe even love, but who you know is not the right fit for you.  It's the right choice, but ending it is no less painful.

It helps me to look at the freedom on the other side of the break up.  I am formulating a plan that feels more solid every day, a plan that's different from anything I've ever done before.  As excited as I am about my plan though, it's equally daunting and scary.  I have days when I look at my beautiful home and the beautiful things I've accumulated and ask myself,  "why I am giving up all of this for the unknown? What if I fail?  What am I doing with my life?!"  At these moments I have to take a deep breath and a step back and remember some advice I got recently.  "Remember, you are choosing this."  This is a choice.  I am choosing freedom over the safety of the home and career I have built over the last decade.  I am choosing my dreams over a career I have developed to pay the mortgage.  I am choosing beauty, trees, and the sea over a condo in a desirable neighborhood with a low crime rate in a good school district.  I am choosing to really live my life and not settling for an existence and future I know.

This risk I'm taking going into the unknown may lead to failure.  There is a chance though, that it leads to success and that is what drives me.  Success met overcoming the challenges I will face will be even sweeter than any I have achieved to this point.  I know what the rewards look like behind the door of the known.  I have reaped them and I am unfulfilled.  "If you really, really want to change and try something new, you need to actually try something new." he said.

I try to remember that in truth, there is nothing for me to lose in pursuing the dream that is pulling at me so strongly.  Money comes and goes, the things I posses are just things.  I have worked so hard to get to this place of freedom and I am so close.  In taking these steps backwards, I realize just how far I've come. Transformation is not easy or everyone would choose it.  It is a long, sometimes painful, but immensely gratifying process and it must be done from a place in the heart where dreams and passion are held.  I will continue to trust the guidance I receive from that place and keep moving forward, even if for now it feels like I'm running in place.