Over the course of the last year I feel a little like the world had it’s way with us. It took our plans, well his plans really but they have since become mine – an indicator of intimacy, I suppose – it took our plans and squashed them.

Sure that this place was just what we wanted it felt so different from the dark side of unemployment, of unconfident, of powerless. And so we grieved there a while. We had the breath sucked out of us and then we crawled back to the surface, with our heads just above water. It all sounds a bit dramatic to say out loud, but it felt not unlike drowning. Maybe more like a beating, but traumatic and dramatic all the same. There was nothing graceful about it. It was violent and violating and some days it still is.

We lost any sort of control we thought we had and were humbled by ambiguity. We lashed violently between wanting to make a home here and rejecting this place for the way it had treated us. And then at some point, maybe when the rains dried up or when we tossed the first dough, at some point I grew tired of being angry. I succumbed to the rhythm of disappointment and it grew expected and normal, and far from disappointing.

Fourteen months into this place and I wonder how we ever got here. And how exactly we’ll ever get out. But then for the first time in all of this I begin to wonder if I even want to. If we want to. Because misery loves company and we’ve had no shortage of only the best variety. Rain brings people in around a fire where my favorite nights are passed. Cities are places to escape with posses. Coffee is supposed to be shared.

And, as it turns out, the upside of unemployment is freedom. Freedom to stay or go, whatever we fancy. Freedom to chase down opportunity or wait patiently for it to come knocking. Sweet limitlessness on which I let myself get high.

The next threshold looms in sight now. And with it all the questions of possibility, of ambition, of rightness. Where do we belong? And where do we want to go? And it’s a tad bit overwhelming and yet totally my favorite part. Of life. I’ve always found limbo completely settling and this time’s no different. I am invigorated by the lack of definition and refreshed by the boundarylessness of it all.

I hate this place for the control it’s stolen and the security it’s smothered. But I am so profoundly grateful for the freedom this presents.

I have a knack for discovering old music and old styles long after they’ve faded from fashion. To that end, Patty Griffin just fell into my life and “When it Don’t Come Easy” melts me just a little.

Everywhere the water’s getting rough. Your best intentions may not be enough. I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home tonight.

We didn’t see it coming, but we’ve stumbled on home. On the sweet security of infinite unknown and the comfort of endless possibility. If only we could keep seeing it that way.