The day before tomorrow

I can’t sleep. At first I thought it was the bed, so I slept on the floor.

Half an hour later, I’m still wide awake.

I know I’m scared, but this is unlike any other fears I have experienced in the past.

I am familiar with the anxious feeling before an important presentation, the knots in my stomach before I asked for a promotion or a raise, the nervousness and stress before my squash matches, the dread before leaping down a 70-foot cliff dive, the angst before a public performance. But this one is different.

This fear feels like a slow-rolling boil and I’m the frog trapped in the pot suddenly realizing I’m being cooked alive. It’s like a deep body of water where I can’t quite tell its depth or temperature, can’t see what’s underneath, yet I know there’s something uneasy hiding somewhere, and it’s there waiting for me to go in. The closest I can describe this fear is the uneasiness one sometimes feel when walking through a cemetery. Not scary, just eerie. I’m not scared, but I’m not perfectly fine either.

I know why I feel this way: tomorrow is the beginning of our ‘grand’ adventure, and the realization that we are voluntarily choosing this ‘lifestyle’ (i.e. to be unemployed and homeless for a year) is finally sinking in.

We had joked with our friends that it’s a good thing we planned this trip so quickly, before our brains catch up with the stupidity of the idea. I say stupid, because, we had a good thing going for us back in Denver: good jobs with comfortable paychecks that let us do the things we enjoy, a comfortable home in a city where we have friends, we’ve figured out a healthy dynamic and routine in our relationship. What are we up-ending our lives for? To satisfy an abstract ennui?

I feel kinda silly right now.

First off, there’s now a gap in my resume I have to explain to future employers. More top-of-mind, I worry about how this trip is going to change our relationship. We didn’t have to worry about money and budget and logistics back in Denver. Well, guess what? These things are going to be a daily reality and topic of conversation for us, and we might occasionally argue-disagree over it. Uh-huh. So not looking forward to it.

And to live in close proximity to my parents for more than a week? Oy vey. I thought I had figured out how to have a relationship with my parents (answer: by putting an ocean between us), and now I have to start from scratch and actually work on building a real relationship with my parents – with whom I have not lived for over 20 years.

I’m also becoming aware of the full weight of what homelessness means. Even though for the last three weeks we haven’t had a place of our own and have been living with friends and family (THANKS, GUYS!), it finally hits me that we’re going to be living in this liminal space for a while.

It’s unsettling to have your possession (however little it might be) scattered in multiple locations. Don’t ask me what’s where, because my poor brain doesn’t remember.

It’s also weird to put a P.O. Box address on online forms when you know they are inquiring about your physical address. Over these bouts of last-minute anxiety, I suddenly remembered that there are probably a few medical bills that I have not yet received but will have to pay between now and next year to avoid debt collection. Fun.

(By the way, do you know that you can register as ‘homeless’ on your voter registration form? I did not, but glad that choice exists.)

I now have greater empathy for those who are homeless and displaced. More than the physical hardship and discomfort, it’s the mental struggle of being unsettled. It’s the constant feeling of helplessness because our lives from now on will be subjected to circumstances beyond our control. I used to think that no one is truly in control of their lives, that control is mere illusion. Now I know that’s just poppycock. Who dares to make the argument that Bill Gates is just as out of control over his life as a Guatemalan refugee?

That’s why people accumulate wealth and possession and seek to live in a politically-stable democracy — consciously or not — because that’s the definition of a comfortable life: to have more control over various aspects of your life.

And… we’re giving that up. Sigh.

I just have to keep repeating to myself the same thing I tell myself during a tough squash game: “these [tough moments] are when change happens.”

It’s 5:30am now. Tomorrow, is now today. The day we start our journey.