Standing on the Edge of a Cliff Once More

November Never Fails to Deliver the Blows

As I unrolled my yoga mat on the living room floor this morning, celebrating my return to an activity that brings me health and joy, I heard the tinging sound of my phone. Typically, while otherwise engaged I would ignore it, but, well, I felt the urge to look and see who was calling me.

Our landlord.

“I have some difficult news I have to break to you,” I steady myself, waiting for the hit.

He needs his house back, the house we’ve called home for over fourteen years in a town that has seen exploding housing costs and a dearth of available stock. The house we’ve raised our three dogs in, the house we’ve loved and laughed and fought and cried in, the house where Izzy and The Smurf died and are now buried in the yard, the house that saw us through most of Pluto in Capricorn will no longer be ours in 60 days if things play out the way he is intending. His mother is severely declining, and he needs to move her up here from her house at the beach and live with her here.

I’ve been here before, the regularity of my reality suddenly upended with no warning. Although there have been signs this could be coming. Just the other day Jon found himself spontaneously talking about how much he’s gotten from being here and if this time was coming to an end, he was okay with moving on. I’d also been seeing The Tower Card in my readings and sometimes just in my head, sudden and inevitable change.

At some point, I started crying during the conversation with our landlord. Tears are almost always my first emotional response to anything of any weight from good to terrible.

I tried to go back to yoga after the call and heard my phone ding. It’s our next-door neighbor asking me via text if I wanted some pineapple guavas off of their tree.

I started crying again thinking about leaving here, this house, this block, our neighbors, The Farmer and The Cook just half a block away.

Fucking November. It’s always delivered the worst of my blows, beginning long before I was born, back to my mother’s home when she was eight years old and it became clear that her mother was dying. Divorce and death and chaos and abuse and homelessness, as much as I try to tell myself I love autumn, I fucking hate it.

I got on my mat again just in time to hear Jon pulling into the driveway with the dogs. He takes them on adventures a few times a week, and I stay here enjoying the house to myself.

I get off my mat to greet him and break the news. A bag of pineapple guavas with a chocolate coin inside sits outside our front door. He comes through the gate and I start to cry. Again. I tell him the news and he responds with anger. Whereas my first response is often sadness his is often anger. His sadness will show itself in a while as my anger will grow.

I try to return to yoga once more but my anxiety won’t let me. As centering and grounding as the activity would be, I am in fight or flight mode and my concentration is for shit.

At the moment, I am swinging between paralysis and the urge to take a flame torch to all of our belongings. Instead, I eat breakfast and I write.

A rat has taken up residence in our home over the past few days. “Get motivated and get moving” are the words I just read when I looked up the rat totem meaning.

Okay then.

It’s been a long time since I have had to leave a home due to someone else’s decision. The last was in the fall of 1996 as I was exiting my first Saturn Return. Seems completely right that this comes as I am on the verge of entering my second Saturn Return.

We’re going to need some miracles.

I typed that and the first one just happened.

We’ve been given another month here. Our Landlord just texted. Pluto moves into Aquarius on January 20th, and our exit point, as of this moment has been extended to February 1st. Happy Birthday to me. I’ll be celebrating my 57th birthday on February 2nd in our new home, or I won’t, because who else knows what will unfold over the next 90 days. I just know in this moment that I need to act as if we are leaving because this is the reality of the moment at hand.

And even through my sadness and fear, there is a glimmer of excitement as I open up to the infinite possibilities on the path ahead.

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