I'm not a hoarder but I was a girlscout.

Sometimes life gives you an opportunity. I do things for the story, I make decisions based on the view. This morning after much deliberation and a boatload of flip flopping, a decision was made. As the life we lead grows into this bigger more responsible role we all make hard decisions that sometimes seem easy to people who haven't lived in our shoes. "Its a no brainer, just do it...or don't". Some of these decisions really are staring us in the face with the best possible answer and others, not so much. In this case, the choice was between buying a home and moving to yet another apartment. Now, if you only consider the benefits of buying a home as your average american views them versus the downsides to renting, this may appear to be a simple answer. I have minimal debt, I have average credit and I would have a home in my price range paid off by 60 at the price I can afford right now. I also have shit to do and somewhat enjoy that while I've learned not to take off on my broken winged dreams just because I can ~ I still can. My bucketlist is incomplete and you know whats NOT on my bucketlist? Buying a house I don't really love just so I can say I own a home or feel like an "Adult". After years of figuring it out with ALOT of help from my friends I don't think this whole buying a house is what I need to prove to myself I am stable and grown. I'm growing but by no means am I grown. Buying a house isn't just roses and daydreams, its coming up with money to fix things and its a honey-do list of never ending improvements and bills, but it's an investment. I'd rather invest in something I love and I'd rather be on remotely solid ground when I make that kind of investment. I've been homeless and I've been broke, broker than broke really and after all things considered I'd rather invest soundly in never being either again. I would rather not choose between the two.

Buying a house is a fairly large commitment and I think by now we are all pretty clear on my issues with commitment. I reserve it to a scarce few people, things and ideas in my life. This is a fairly large commitment and I am not of the mind it should be taken lightly, I'm also afraid, admittedly of commitment to a mess, of any kind. With the exception of a truly beautiful one, I get pretty fuckin dumb over a beautiful mess, but how often do you find a truly beautiful mess in house form on a moderately minescule budget and with a mere 3 months to work. I'm not saying it's impossible I'm just saying, the shits rare and precious, you can't rush these types of things.

Tomorrow is never guaranteed and anything can happen in a day, after the last twenty or so years I've learned to follow the signs and walk through the open doors with a little more hope. I've also been hit in the head with a frying pan once or twice upon passing the threshold. It's a fifty fifty chance no matter which road you take, that's the journey, that's the adventure. It is not for the weak this living and life is far more complicated for each individual person than the world and times we live in seem to want to admit. I don't have children, I don't have credit cards, I don't have any giant looming debts and I can afford a house. On the flip side, I also don't have roots I can't simply replant. I have roughly 14 children whom I love more than cake, a few minor debts that I'd like to pay off over the next year and I can't afford to fix repair, update or upkeep a house alone. Make no mistake about it, I have many amazing people with wicked crazy skills in my life, but my fears are not unfounded and my people have taken care of me long enough, its time for a little relief. Thus, for all intended purposes I am alone on that road. A wise woman once told me no one takes care of you but you. I'd say I've disproved that theory enough times in my life this far. Like anything in life, there are times where that way of living is the coldest and hardest of truths. There are other times where its a giant steaming load of bullshit. The line, it's a thin line, but the line nonetheless is the something a wise man once told me ~ No one owes you anything in this life. This one is true more than it's not.

Here and now is a place, an opportunity, to gain firm footing, the training and chance to hit the ground sprinting rather than lackadaisically walking and false starting through the hand at life we've been dealing ourselves. I choose firm footing and it's a fifty fifty chance i'm choosing wisely, but the view gained from taking the road less wandered, is not always easy or simple but I enjoy what I can, that shit is priceless. I can't deny the urge to settle in and become part of the machine is strong but the urge to do it by my terms is brickhouse strong. If you can't afford it~and all the things that go along with it, don't fuckin buy it. I can't afford to roll through life at the pace of other peoples parades when I'm trying to run and dance to my own personal secondline. Life is short and whether you take the boat or the helicopter the less baggage you bring the easier it is move forward in any situation. I live as simply and minimally as possible, you learn that after you've lost enough things. You learn that it's not about things, it's about people, it's about experiences, stories and living. I want to live fully, I want to be everyone I wanted to be when I grew up, I want to be better at making lemonade. To do any of these things, any one at all, I NEED to proceed with caution. I need to take my time so I can be prepared and THAT is the wisest statement ever made by a Girlscout. ~ Be prepared. There is no easy decision, there are signs and instincts and they exist for a reason. Happiness is in choosing what's right for you based on those things and a carefully evaluated history of events. Happiness is not the shit you own,  it's a chunk of who you are. How many people do you know who are really truly one hundred percent happy? None, you know NONE, less than that even. How many people do you know who are striving to get there? If you're lucky like I am, the answer is most, most of the people I really know are busting their asses to find and achieve happiness. Every one of them is doing it their way, everyone of them is going somewhere. Not every one is going to choose the same road, and some of them will make it to the same places, but my gypsy tells me to keep a move on and that bitch hasn't missed much over the years.