By Andi Straus
Maybe I need to move. Sometimes I want to move, feel driven to move. But I dread moving, the disruption, the expense, the uncertainty, the commitment. I want to feel at home.
I have been living in a senior residence since July of last year, first in the assisted living section, and then since September in the independent living part of the facility. I moved out of my condo in Fishkill last summer when I was so sick I couldn’t care for myself, but although it was a wrenching transition, I had never felt entirely at home there anyway. It was convenient and affordable when I was working, but I did not live among like-minded people, and my feeling of not belonging there was pervasive.
Even before I got sick, I had planned to move when I retired, but as I mentioned in my last post, my plan was to move to Colorado. The sale of my condo is now finally complete and the senior residence is my only home. But I don’t feel like I belong here either. I am both sicker and in better shape than the residents here, and I am surrounded by a forest of walkers and scooters outside the dining room every evening, in the elevators, the common areas, and by others who can’t care for themselves at home. This depresses me. And yet everyone here is very kind, I feel safe and well cared for, and I am settled in my apartment.
I am finding that decisions, any major decisions, are difficult when living with a terminal cancer diagnosis. I don’t know how long I’ll be alive, and I ask myself if this is the right time to make changes that involve a time commitment. I bought a new cell phone back in November, and it comes with a three-year contract, and I thought to myself, someone else is probably going to have to deal with this, ultimately. It felt as if I was pulling one over on the salesman in some way.
There are countless incidents like this – do I get the two-year subscription to an app when it’s cheaper than the one year? Do I buy plane tickets for a vacation next winter? Regarding a possible move, my wise therapist at Ann’s Place observes that it takes about six months to find and settle into a new place, and asks in his gentle way if this is this how I want to spend my time. I said an immediate, “No, I have so many other things I want to be doing.” And yet, only a few weeks after he asked that question, I am again beset by restlessness, troubled by the thought that I am the only person of my friends and acquaintance circle living in a senior residence, and that I am settling for a diminished life.
If I knew I had several years to live, spending six months on moving wouldn’t seem significant. But if I only have a year or two, and 25-50% of my time alive would be spent moving, does it make sense to undergo this kind of disruption only to have to move again when I get sick? People say to live one day at a time, to live fully now, because the present is all we have, but is moving, when I am facing so much uncertainty, a responsible and reasonable thing to do? Is being reasonable and responsible in my best interest?
I so want to be normal, live a normal retirement. But nothing about my situation fits my definition of normal. I am arriving at the understanding that for now I need to grieve the loss of the dreams I had for where I will live – a friend of mine here says that we were not only building castles in the air, we were furnishing them! It made me laugh but it is true – I imagined I would have a screened-in porch one day. I won’t. I will have to find a way to spend summer days sitting on someone else’s porch.
In fact, I am home now. Maybe this isn’t the home I would have chosen for myself at this stage of my life, but home nonetheless. And although I feel I don’t fully belong here, shouldn’t have to belong here, I have found a small group of friends (we call ourselves “The Old But Not Dead Yet Club”) and we share happy hours together, plan outings and take walks. I refer, without irony, to my apartment as home, and I can accept that, at least for now, I am not moving.
I welcome your comments and thoughts about what I’ve written, your feelings about home, belonging, and making decisions while in our liminal space.