Think about all of the possible things that can go wrong and remember that's the first step toward resilience

I am in the midst of a big rearranging of the house. I have decided to stick around here because it makes no sense to move when I own a house and the mortgage is much lower than the rent I would get. This is also where the cats live.

But it's also where I've spent the last two years building a fairly substantial information outlet. Every week I get more productive. Since Sunday, I've published seven newsletters. I am in a place where I can be very efficient.

I have typically not done much work in the front table. I share my house with a tenant, a person who will be moving out at some point. Part of the reason is that I want to be able to work in the house whenever I want.

In the meantime, I realize I share a space with someone who has been able to rebuild a part of his life by being here. This is the first place he's been able to live in years where he wasn't sleeping on a couch. He's not going to be leaving here until I know for sure he's going to something better.

The problem for me is I've learned I'm a person who needs to be able to be alone. If I'm left to my own devices, I get to work. If I'm around people, I very quickly begin to question my worth. No one is to blame for this. It's just how my brain works, so I like solitude when I work.

Working from home allows me to fully engage in the work I do. I spend my working days writing about the public realm around me. As I type this I'm listening to a city parks and recreation meeting., and part of my brain is taking in information that I'm going to use. Listening now while I type this will help me when I go to produce this later.

And then I stop and stare at my cat Mink who is sitting in the window looking out at the street as the sun fades. I forgot how fast the darkness begins to come as we come closer to the equinox. He jumps back down and I hear about the timing of why one capital project is on hold. This may sound minor, but to me it's part of the world I imagine every day when I finish my work and realize that I have the best job in the world for me.

I'm also well aware that I may be insane to most people, but I assure you are I am fully nuts.

I've had so many tenants live here, and I don't remember how many are still Facebook friends. I alienate people easily, and I know that for most people, I'm best in small qualities. I get that! I also get bored of me.

The thing is, though, I know what I'm producing is important even though my life has become one where I am happiest when I'm alone, working or writing or existing.

For many years I had a person in the basement who took ill and eventually died. He was here from 2009 until 2020 and the first year of the pandemic. I think. Another friend of mine cleaned up the mess he left.

But there were so many people. The woman who moved in, and then a boyfriend moved in, and I finally kicked them out for fighting. The woman who left because of the basement guy (even though he wouldn't start screaming until 2017 or so...). The graduate student who defended his dissertation while here. The other couple who I had to kick out for fighting.

Seasons. My single life has felt like a series of seasons from a television program. Different characters come and go as various storylines resolve themselves. This is the frame in which I am able to envision a big important question:

What next?

I have lived a good life and I hope there are many, many days ahead in which I can write and be productive. I feel a sense of bliss being able to do the work, continuing to hear the parks and rec board ask questions. It's still a virtual meeting, and the sound quality is magnificent and I just think that maybe a working journalist would experience life this way. This is what I know. This is what I know how to do, and I feel blessed.

Imagine the roar of a crowd unified due to the collective appreciation of a life lost too early

Growing up in America, I heard so many stories of my parents growing up in Liverpool. I begin the morning that begins the anniversary of my 20th year in the Charlottesville area by watching Liverpool and Everton play and I see the crowd shots and so many times wish I could be in a place like that...

And then I think I'm about to spend the next week seeing what it would be like if I worked even harder on getting newsletters out to the people who pay me to write. What if I double down on this, and follow whatever passion is driving me?

I'm still growing up. I sometimes think my life has already happened, all at once, and I just experience parts of it as they flow, guided by all of this writing that I've done already. I wake up every day not quite remembering who I am at first, leaving dreams that are infinitely more vibrant than my waking life.

Seemingly more vibrant.

Regardless, I am now rooted to where I am, though I look to the horizon for sudden storms that may evade my perception. I scan for threats and always see them and live my life accordingly.

I can always dream of what it would have been like if I've made it to England, but it's too late now to make that a reality. It's been three years since I was there, and I can't imagine many situations where I would go over now. Every fiber of my being goes into the work I do, work driven somehow by wanting to make this place better, even if I don't always remember what that phrase means, either.

Anyway. There's no point to this on Facebook. I'm going to post this and then move it over the blog. I'm not sure why I need to write to a lot of people who could be those threats.

I wish I had been much more cautious about who I let near me and I've learned that lesson and thankfully now I can just work, many parts of my life completely over, over and out. It's okay, though. I can draw from all of the parts of my life and go mosaic in my approach.

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