April 22nd, 2013
This was not my plan.
I had a great product I was developing in London. I was going to stay there, build the business, become wealthy and eventually a dual citizen.
Somewhere around the time my U.K. Visa expired the plan started to de-rail. I came back to the States (at the suggestion of her Majesty’s Border Patrol) thinking that I would come back to the States, finish my business plan and then come back, resume business building, get the angel funding that was within grasp, and live happily ever after.
Like dominoes in slow motion, one by one, the plans and relationships fell apart. On Saturday before I returned to London, I admitted that it was the trip to pack up my stuff and asked if my brother knew of anyone who had someplace that I could rent in Atlanta with the dog.
He suggested that I move to my Mom’s empty house in Rolling Oak*, Alabama. My response was “I’ll be damned if I move there…”
Well.
This is damnation. Total separation from the life I loved and all my hopes and dreams.
I did give myself a few months off. Mostly, I am getting to the point that I am OK with living here. I am almost a hermit, doing my freelance work for my wonderful client in ATL, who hired me back after my meltdown the week of their flagship event. The house is a work in progress. Scraping off the damage that my mother’s workers did to the house and planning what to do that walks the balance between necessary comfort and renovating it beyond all possible hope of any return on investment.
The rose bush that my mom had me plant in an inappropriate place has now moved across the yard in a happy place.
“Culture shock much?” Yes.
But. I have a house. Sparkie is happy. I have blooms on the Clematis, I have tomatoes and blueberries planted and my new Passionflower plants are shooting toward the sky. In a few years, I’ll have the house covered just like my little cottage in London.
*Rolling Oak is not the real name.
Leave a Reply