tealin | New Place

Well, sportsfans, I've moved into the new place.

To be honest I have no idea how I feel about it. If I had been let loose to invent a dream house, I would still have left out half a dozen things that are ideal about this place. I'm pretty sure its former owners were time travellers. It's almost comical how compatible we are – or would have been if I'd met them before they died.* On the other hand, though, I didn't necessarily want to leave my old place, until the end. I had been so in love with that house, and it had so much going for it. I felt wonderfully at home there for the first few years and did some serious healing in that time. Perhaps I persisted there longer than I ought to have done, just for the sake of that love. It has been the least voluntary move in most of my adult life, and a scramble at that – I only started seriously packing on Saturday, and here Wednesday I am half unpacked again. Maybe I'm just too exhausted to be joyful.

As I settle in I can feel my focus and calm returning. I had a wonderful lull this afternoon drinking a cup of tea in the kitchen with Choral Evensong on the radio and the stove gently ticking as it purred along at its lowest setting.** This is a good place, and what's more, the right thing at the right time. When I've settled in maybe I will be happier about it.

Whatever's going on unconsciously, I have a pantry full (full!) of foodstuffs, porridge in the fridge for tomorrow, and I'm about to put the slowcooker on overnight to make some soup stock; as there is no one here to offend but myself, I am as secure as I can expect to be in the Year of Our Lord 2020. I hope my emotional state catches up with that soon.

*Well, if they were time travellers, maybe I will meet them in the future. Going by their home, though, I think they were about as interested in the future as I am in the tropics.
**It's a gas equivalent of a wood stove – always on, to some degree, as it's an enormous faff to relight, and is connected to the hot water system