I realized the other day I’ve stopped thinking about what I’ll do when I leave here. It was kind of liberating.

Quick backstory.
I’m in the okanagan right now, living with my aunt and my cousin for the winter (which has yet to really assert itself in any recognizable way. Strange, but it makes driving easier and shoveling the driveway easiest, so I’m not complaining. It’s just odd in a is it really January? kind of way) to help out with the chores and daily activities that can be taxing or daunting without help.
When I first got here I was living and interacting and finding a fit within lives established and regimented. Like it would be anywhere. If you move in with someone, you are adding something (one hopes) to a life that has a routine, a format. Ideally one is adaptable enough to find a place within that and things go smoothly. We were starting to establish an inclusive routine. Regardless of this, I was still surfing the rental ads from the paper of the place I’ll move to in the spring (dog friendly forested acreage ideal, obviously), thinking about a job I might get, some things I might do (scuba lessons finally?), you know, the future. That elusive place filled with possibility and expectation (regardless of how furiously I try not to have those) where a life is waiting to be lived.
It’s a place I visit often, the future. It rarely looks anything like I imagined when I get there. There being 2 months, 6 days, 5 years, however far from where I’m at now.

At this moment, I pretty much know how far into the future I’m thinking about, at least in the present tense. About 6 weeks. Early march is when I leave here and head to the next adventure. I’m saying early march because things change often and who knows when I’ll actually leave. It might be earlier or later than that time, it’s best not to be too rigid in terms of constructs such as time. My hope is that whatever is happening here by that time will be such that my presence is no longer needed and I can take my littlest hobo tendencies west, to the sea. To see what happens when I focus my attention more directly on the thing that I’ve been subtly (or not so subtly) manifesting since November 2012. A little place, for a girl, a black dog and a piano to live in rainforesty bliss, not too far from the ocean.

Ok, but as for now…recently there’s been enough activity around here that I needed to be very present, very attentive, very involved directly, rather than just an add-on to the activity. I stopped writing because the things I’m processing at the end of the day have less to do with me, or at least, less to do with just me. I’ve spoken before about my life not being my own and while there are moments of resentment, as there would be when it feels as though we have no choice in what we do, ultimately I made the choice to be here and I am truly glad that I did because I have been helpful.
I still do less in a day than I believe I could be doing, especially with regard to exercise and physical activity. But I’m falling into bed at night feeling as though I’ve earned it. Isn’t that the point? There will come a time when it makes sense to start looking for a place to rent, for an address of my own in the place I’d like to call home at least for a time, if not forever (which is a really long time). For now, at least for a while, I’m living a life in the here and now, not thinking too far beyond a couple of days, a week at most.

I haven’t lost sight of the future and I’m ecstatic about what might happen in it. But it’s good to know that every once in a while I can lose track of it because I’m so damned delightfully present.