Time to move on

Today a tulip flowered in my garden, for the first time. I’d forgotten I’d even planted the bulbs, and frankly the winter has been so rubbish I’m surprised it didn’t freeze to death in the ground.  

Its a shame it flowered exactly two days before we leave this house and this city, but I’m glad it flowered at all, because it reminds me that the fruit of our labour doesn’t always appear overnight, and we might eventually reap something we’d sown a long time ago, and perhaps given up on (if you get my mangled metaphors).

There are many good reasons for leaving this house and this city, but the main one is that last year (and only two months after moving into this house) I was diagnosed with cancer.  

Since the last owner of the house died of cancer, I can’t help feeling our home is jinxed and I’m better off out of it.  I know this is completely irrational (after all, I’m a logical lawyer.  As was the last owner of this house), but I can’t really enjoy this house in the way I thought I would, so it is time to move on. 

Despite having moved many many times in my life, I’m overly stressed about this move, at least in my sleep.  My teeth, which I grind in my sleep when stressed, would be stumps by now if I didn’t wear a plate in my mouth at night to protect them.    When I wake my head is full of the fragments of anxious dreams and the muscles from my temples to my neck ache.  I’ve tried many things to stop this teeth grinding business, from therapy (this culminated in a strange rapid eye movements hoodoo ceremony, which didn’t seem to work.  I’m not kidding), yoga (I kind of liked it until the teacher asked me if I thought that anything I had done had caused the cancer.  Again, I’m not kidding), to running (this has potential, if it ever stops raining in this country).  Maybe I’ll try hypnosis next.  Any suggestions welcome. 

I’m not sure what the heck I’m so worried about, except for the prospect of changing almost every aspect of my life, but some people certainly seem to be trying to wind me up.  Our lawyer, arranging the purchase of our new house, keeps sending me increasingly frantic emails.  They are full of words in bold and CAPITALS, as though she is shrieking at me.  Her last email was also sent with HIGH IMPORTANCE, meaning it arrived in my email box with a red exclamation mark next to it.  For gods sake, its a house conveyance.  I’ve seen people less stressed by complex multi-jurisdictional structured finance deals.  

Maybe I should pass on the number of my yoga teacher.