Stepping out of the past...

I am so stressed right now trying to get past the damage to my home, its rebuilding after Katrina tore it in half, and now finishing it up to sell it all away. I bought this home before I was married and thought it would be a great place to live, to raise children, to teach good lessons, to simply...enjoy life. After getting married young, we managed to get out there and find ways (when young and broke) to make it work. It was always a struggle, a struggle to maintain, a struggle to manage, a struggle to keep up, and a struggle to simply enjoy. There were times when I was truly proud of my place, but it always seemed there was so much more work to do than would ever get done. With my job requiring so much overtime, travel and out of pocket effort, it become a property of condemnation instead of a sanctuary. I never got past this and I never truly overcame my feelings of despair. Now, I sit here on the brink of selling it, making decent $ on the property....the end closing in finally, and I am still stressed about it.

I never realized the full potential of this place, I never was able to fully master its maintenance, management and care but I tried so hard for over 11 years to make it a place worth living. I am proud that I restored it back to a glory that it hadn't seen ever in its existence, I made it beautiful home and for that I do feel a slight degree of happiness. I am grateful for the times that I share here with my 2 children, their lives, their memories, their experiences. For the friends, family and events that transpired here, I am thankful likewise. No, regretably they were not always good times, in fact I would say most were not, and for some twisted reason I recall each moment like an overplayed track stuck in a mindless repitive groove on a old 45 caked with the dusty memories of times long gone. I am so honored to have been part of its brief passage in time, passage in my life, some 33% of my life was spent on that property, that parcel of land, that slice of "Americana"...

Why is it so hard to complete, so hard to pull together now, so hard to realize the end is near? I continued to pay on a mortgage for a property that I haven't lived in one a regular basis in nearly 30 months. I need to summon the final bit of strength, the final bit of sinew and get this done, put it back into the past and find the way out...the way to a more peaceful chapter in my life.