1905 E. 18th St.

Six months before I left 1905 E. 18th St. was for sale for $165,000, making the monthly payment right at $1000/mo. It's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath - 864 square feet of front porched cuteness in the part of town where you now buy rundown places and empty lots for upwards of $250,000 just to build some half-million dollar monstrosity.  It is barnhouse red with dark blue trim and there's a sunroom off the back and a long, narrow backyard.  Down the street are two cemeteries, a 24 hour coffee shop on the corner and the new college football stadium that can fit 93,000 people in one spot is less than a quarter of a mile away. 

I put an offer in on this place and talked myself out of it.  I remember a hyperventilating conversation with Lou just before.  Scared of commitment (still), scared of putting down roots, scared of doing that by myself because doing that is something people do together just like drinking is something I don't do alone.

The person who owns the house now has a fan page for it and rents it out for $1500/mo.

Lately (this weekend) I've been thinking about what would have happened if I went through with it.  I would have walls and a bed to sleep in right now.  Walls that appreciated greatly in value in a short amount of time.  I probably would have gone out on some dates with someone I wondered about for 5 years, someone I still wonder about (he asked weeks before I left and I blew him off because I knew I was going).  It wouldn't have worked out because I'm still scared of commitment and, honestly, that much fucked up in one small part of the universe would have caused some sort of combustion.  I would have had a full house (I LOVE having a full house) at least twice a year, each year, since then, hosting friends for SXSW and ACL because that's what I do.  I would have been doing the same thing I am now, but at a different place.  I wouldn't have ever been on a real vacation.  I still kind of haven't been.

I wouldn't have gotten rid of something that really needed to go.  I wouldn't have known DD, Ireland or that teddy bear of a cop in Cork.  The Dutch girls, magners or Utrecht.  I would have, so wrongly, kept thinking that I really wouldn't like Paris.  There would have been no Colin or Shakespeare's or that Italian guy who stuck his tongue in my ear at sacre coeur.  There wouldn't have been jdg at the paradiso in Amsterdam.  There wouldn't have been that long stretch of gray in some European town that I can't remember right now (maybe maastricht? I can't get in to the mind palace right now) but feels very very real right now.  There wouldn't have been the timely grace of an unsuspecting friend.  No crazy camp, beautiful art or Jakie in New Mexico.  No smell of sawdust and real gorditas in Juarez, without fear. There would have been no office wife, no G (or only virtual G), and no finding that I can tolerate my job as long as the people are right.  I wouldn't have gone on my first (and only thus far) camping as an adult adventure (just say no to the fireball). I wouldn't be evicting a person.  I wouldn't be on my 77th day of living in my car.  My car with no air conditioning.  

It's been a big circle.  And I don't feel like I'm in a better place than when I left for drastically different reasons.  I'm exhausted: emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. Neko Case is singing my song and Paris sounds really really perfect right now.