April 17, 2005

• Cutting Anchor Lines

  
  

  I am moving.

  
  

  As I get deeper and deeper into this process, I have come to appreciate how “moving” is a lot more than merely tossing your goodies in a few moving boxes and going. I am not moving across town, I am moving across the country– 2200 miles.

  
  

  Moving– at least for me– is also about “moving on.” This afternoon, I have been packing a few boxes in my office. As I pack, I have also been throwing away the “relics” of a past life. Most recently, I pitched the rolls of architectural drawings for the retail store that was once part of my business..  a business I haven’t had since 1999. Relics. But more than that, “having” them (even though I never look at them) was a sort of “invisible thread” anchoring me to this place. Throwing them away was about a lot more than not having to move five pounds of paper. It was about not having to move the weight of a memory that would be activated every time I run into those stupid drawings in some closet.

  
  

  In order to truly move– as opposed to merely transferring the past to a new geographic location– we have to be willing to release, to let go, of things. We have all these “totems” we drag around, as reminders of not necessarily happy things. “Totems” strikes me as a very appropriate word… since we literally “tote ‘em” around with us. My “totems” connect me to failed relationships, divorce, lawsuits, bankruptcy, closed businesses, long gone tax audits and more. They connect me to a family that never allowed me to live my own life, on my own terms. Most are reminders of low points, not high points, in my life. Yet, I have faithfully toted them around, for all these years… seemingly in some misguided attempt to “honor” the past.

  
  

  A few weeks ago, I wrote about finding “closure” by visiting places around town I used to feel connected to– and discovering that I was no longer “tied” to them. I wrote about the way the death of two beloved pets also represented the cutting of two “invisible threads” to my own past. Now the process has moved closer to home, as I am choosing which parts of my past that get to come along on this new adventure, and which parts will get left behind.

  
  

  It will be strange to leave this town. When I came here, in January 1981, my experience of life had been one of constant movement; of never sitting still. 20 years old, 13 countries, three continents, 16 schools, 37 moves. With the exception of short stints in Dallas, Phoenix and a couple of years in Portland, OR, I have been “anchored” here for almost 25 years. I use the word anchored, because I have never truly felt “home” here– yet I have been “moored” in place for all these years.

  
  

  It has amazed me how many anchor lines I have put out. Whether I did so as a knee-jerk reaction to counter the “Global Nomad” lifestyle that preceded my coming to Texas, I will never know. All I know is that I made choices that made it very difficult for me to up an leave, on short notice. For the two years I went to Portland, I was still “commuting” back to Texas to mind a business. I remember sitting in a cab, on the way to the airport, and “Hotel California” by the Eagles came on. “You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.” It seemed so completely representative of everything in my life. And now, all these years later, it seems like I am finally starting to refloat from the sandbar where I have been marooned.

  
  

  And with that, I need to go toss some more stuff in the trash.

  
  

   

  • 7:51 pm
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