Still Settling

I am still housesitting, and in the meantime, looking for a more permanent place. I had not counted on there being such a shortage of rentals in Kodiak, and on rents being so excessively high! It has been quite the sticker shock for me - to look at 450-sq. foot apartments going for $950/mo., or new, roomy apartments for $1375/mo. ! Maybe I am just picky - but so many places don't measure up to my standards of cleanliness or just decor. Of course, I left my own home that Bren & I decorated with our own hands and invested 'sweat' equity in over the past 5 years. It's decorated in our collaborative style of Asian modern with art work in all the rooms. The other hard part is finding a place with room and light to do my artwork. I need a space where I can make a mess, and where I can 'spread out', and that has good lighting. That is a challenge! I have been feeling increasingly discouraged.

It doesn't help that I am such a creature of habit, and a homebody. I miss my home, and my things - books, masks, art supplies - and most of all, my life-partner and my pets. Until I had traveled back to my home town, and slept in a strange house the first few nights, it hadn't occurred to me that I have never lived by myself. When I went away to college, I had roommates. Then my son was born, and after college, I lived with my mother for 10 years. Then I moved to Seattle and have lived with Bren for the past 11 years. It isn't that I can't stand to be alone - on the contrary, I've always relished my 'alone time' - having the house to myself for a few hours, or getting up early on a Saturday and drinking my coffee while reading or sketching, or just musing.

This is just a different phase of my life. I am too busy now to be lonely - there is always my mother to visit, or errands to run, or another apartment to view. The sun has lengthened her hours in the sky from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. The cold winter days have persisted, and the hiking trails remain icy, but I can enjoy a brisk walk after work across the bridge to Near Island, toward the boat harbor.