Some things are best mended by a break. ~Edith Wharton

I know I promised last Throwback Thursday to write about the three things that led to my gypsy life on the road. But there was one big thing that cleared the way for them–I’d better talk about that first.

I bought a house (this probably sounds like a move in the opposite direction, but stay with me). A broken house bought with a man I was in a broken relationship with. Perhaps I thought I could fix them both.

The house was a foreclosure, the deep neglect of it assaulting my nostrils with a stench of mold so strong I thought it must’ve opened the door itself, to escape. A small pond had gathered in the basement, black mold climbing the walls like velvet wallpaper. Wires and plumbing hung from the rafters where the furnace and hot water heater had been ripped out. If a house could be raped, this one was. Plugging my nose and holding my breath, I couldn’t see any potential through my watering eyes as I ran back out to the motorcycle waiting for our ride to resume. 

But M could. He convinced me we could flip it, make a profit.  

A few months later, when the lease was up on my apartment, I moved into this work in progress–everything I owned in the garage, an air mattress on the floor where spackle would fall all around but thankfully never on. I hung drop cloths for curtains and aligned my transformation with the house’s–knowing when it sold it would send me somehow…somewhere. I’d been escaping winter more and more and for longer and longer, leading to the realization: the world was too big and beautiful to keep living in one place. With each trip, my grip around the only place I’d ever called home loosened. 

I was living on a launchpad.

Searching through paint samples prompted the searching of my mind–I was looking for what spoke to me on both fronts. “Caribbean Aqua Blue” and moving to an island. “Afterglow” and afterthoughts; all the things I’d miss, leaving all my friends. Could I do it? Would I be miserable? I painted walls and contemplated possibilities, altering us both. Designing the bathroom while searching new designs for my life. Out west? I loved the Zen feel of Sedona and her hundreds of hikes. Farther? The part of California where some of my dad’s family lived had a chic vibe with laid back surfer towns a quick drive away.

Into this reverie and renovation came an invitation to attend the wedding of M’s cousin in New Zealand. 

Our feet were dangling from the chuppah where a freshly minted marriage had vowed “til death do us part,” but my relationship was dead on arrival. No, nothing had happened. There hadn’t been a fight, none of the usual drama. Just an insight breaking across my heart, as soft as the mist beginning to fall–that’s how I knew it was true. We’re not going to make it. This will never be us.

An inconvenient truth only three days into a trip on the other side of the world. The timing was weird, ditto the location. Our vintage dress and the black and white photos would show us having a great time, our inner demons distracted for a while. But there was no mistaking it. A chasm was opening between us. M was sitting and talking right next to me, but he felt farther away. 

The mist turned to a soft rain, drops hitting my skin like punctuation marks. Okay, I get it. To make sure, it rained harder–in exclamation points. We ran into the big tent and joined in celebrating the newlyweds’ love with a night of drinking, dancing and laughing. Everyone was happy. We were happy. I pushed the chuppah revelation away, back to the inkling it typically was.

But the next day, it started to develop, like a photo appearing in the darkroom. Faint at first, then becomes more defined with time. Finally, as we traveled to the tip of the north island–officially named the Far, Far North–I could see it clearly and had to call it.  

Each linoleum square on the kitchen floor represented the intermittent intimacy in our six year on-again-off-again relationship. Both had fallen out of fashion. Both took time, strength and deep determination to rip up, my motivation rewarded by what I was uncovering. The original design. Hardwood floors and a heart ready to shine.

I learned mistakes could be corrected, sanded out, painted over, re-measured and re-cut–no one was going to look at my results as closely as I did. We took chances on a lavender accent wall in the living room. The belief everything was always getting better carried me and a trust in the outcome–for the house and for the new direction of my life–gave me inner peace (and power). There was a divine designer in charge. 

PS I like to sleep on everything I write, editing it the next day before posting. I’m on my way home and quickly pop into a Mexican restaurant for some guacamole to go. Without knowing why, I decided to dine-in instead. Amidst chips and salsa, a song M used to sing while strumming guitar comes on. It’s old and obscure, I’d never even heard of it before him. And it’s no mistake it’s playing now, in the hang time of this piece being published. Now I know why I felt pulled to stay, and I’m glad I did. M and I may not have been good romantic partners, but we’d been great business partners. And the house venture is what opened the way for me living on an island in January.