I’ve bought an expensive piece of air. A piece of air that promises to become a home to shelter and inspire my next life stage.
Maybe that sounds too poetic a way to describe buying an apartment ‘off the plan’. The copious contract I’ve signed certainly wasn’t crafted by a literary wordsmith.
But if poetry is made up of beginnings and endings, loves and losses, fears and aspirations, then this particular piece of air is undeniably poetic for me.
In 18 months or so I will move into a new apartment, a small home. On a practical level the move will require me to downsize. Take measurements and make decisions.
I have recently become a middle-aged orphan. Is there actually such a thing? I don’t know what to call it when your last parent dies and you are finally and irreversibly cut adrift. When you are concurrently more yourself, and less yourself, that you’ve ever been before.
Clearing out the family home, and another elderly relative’s home a few years prior – I am the owner of more objects than ever before. What will come with me and what will be left behind?
I’m pleased my new home is now just a promised piece of air. I’m going to need quite some time to make this change. The physical move will, after all, be the simple part. The re-imagining of this next stage of my life may be quite a bit more complex.