I have been using my house projects to numb out a little. No matter how much I truly love working on my house, I know that a little of it comes from wanting to avoid hard feelings to feel. It’s not excessive, but it is there, it’s like a character in the house story.

That said, I’m truly loving it, it’s the biggest art project I’ve ever done. And sometimes my stubbornness feels a little silly. I have had internal conversations with myself about it, like, you could call a friend, Jennifer. They would come help you empty this truck full of cabinets. And then I answer in my head, “but I would have to WAIT for them and be on THEIR timeline.”

So NO. And then I just do my own thing. I make it work.

This is the thing about being single that I never knew. I’ve never been single this long since I started dating at 16. It is a miracle, this space. You realize how much you are capable of. I mean, I had a pretty deep sense of my own badassery before I was single, but now when I face a problem like–a drum sander not working right, or a Uhaul door being stuck shut, or a travel trailer jack breaking, or how to install drywall around a million electrical outlets, any anything that I have to problem solve…I just work the problem.

It is like my favorite scene from Apollo 13 when they have to figure out how to make the oxygen canisters from the Lem work for the Shuttle. They didn’t lose their ever loving minds. They worked the problem. Sure, they weren’t alone, but people’s lives depended on them and time was limited. So yeah, that’s a bit of a problem. The best part is when the little engineer is called a “steely eyed Missile Man.” God I love that movie.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, but my space fantasies are big with the Apollo 13 peeps.

You could say that I “ran away” from a life that wasn’t working for me. To quote Elizabeth Gilbert, “NOT THIS” is a good enough statement to say for why you are leaving something.

No, not that. And not that other thing. Yes to this place.

I had to leave the other life to save my life. I knew on my deepest gut level that nothing was working for me there. I pushed my intuition down and ignored it and then I started to get sick. First I got sick in subtle ways, then I got sick in significant ways that altered the course of my life. I could literally have had a stroke. Thank God I didn’t. Thank God I just had a panic attack/seizure. No one really knows what it was. All I know is that it was my body sending me a major alarm signal.

I love my house, and working on it feels really good. And sitting on my couch in the mornings with Korra and now her with my kittens feels really good.

Today was an oddball day. I’m starting to venture out into the talking to people on the dating scene again…and it is bringing stuff up. I’m me, so it’s one person at a time for this gal. I’m enjoying it, but it is making me sketchy and anxious and feeling like I need to bolt even though I like this person.

I like the line in this song when Miranda sings “no one ever taught me how to stay.” There is a whole world of meaning behind those words. I think this album is an incredible work of genius. She took her grief and her wreck of a broken heart and made this opus of an album. Respect, sister. I respect the shit out of you and this work of yours.

Lucy is my opus, I hope. I hope helping her come alive again helps me come alive again. No. I hope making her come alive again helps me transform into the me that is waiting to be born. We change constantly in our life, and right now one of my biggest life shifts is happening.

Namaste.