Releasing Your Grip

This morning I’m faced with another “loss” in a growing string of losses. It has me pondering the ripple effect that losses invariably produce…i.e. consequences.

This loss at first blush was a tangible ‘business’ loss. A renter failed to pay rent for two months, and has mistreated our home in the process. I was immediately angry…not so much at the rent, as I knew he was struggling. But the condition of the home I cared for and poured my energy, money, and time into, had been violated…seemingly without a care. That is not the ‘real’ loss.

There is yet another loss in trust misplaced in people. Compassion and grace offered, with no return value. The bigger loss is a friendship. Someone’s integrity. A neighborhood changed.

As I wrote in a previous post, losses may also have positive dividends. We had been holding on to a house we loved and a neighborhood we enjoyed being a part of because those things are rare. When we embarked on this travel adventure, we wanted to have those cherished things to return to. This latest rental failure is another sign that it is time to move on. It has taken away the joy of our once beautiful home and enabled us to step away and see it as a house. A house that is only a home when we are in-dwelling and enjoying life within its adornments.

We have proven that wherever our abode is…there our home is as well!

And so we will chock this up to a costly lesson: don’t do business with friends, and don’t place emotion unduly on a tangible material thing…that is replaceable. And a renewed understanding of the well-worn phrase…”home is where your heart is.”

I might translate that as: Home is wherever you are present-inthemoment with those you love.