My Tiny Life

July 2016 - another year, another post.

What happened to me in the last year was shocking, miserable, awful and ultimately redeeming. Look at me! Such a loser at life. Mean, nasty, revengeful - and those are my better qualities. I also made huge changes in my life, some by choice and some by chance. I

 have reconciled to the fact that I am not perfect, and recognizing that, cannot expect it in others. I have chased perfection, even knowing I was not in the same league, knowing that I failed in so many areas, and when perfection never came, and the disappointment set in, I would start again.

All of this has led me here, so welcome to my crappy life. I do not play well with people. I like myself better than I like most other people, in fact I like dogs more than I like people. I have been disconnected from my family for more than 30 years, and with my own chidren, I am close to my daughter but she lives 3,000 miles away and my son is more like me than I wanted because he has chosen to do what I did and disconnect from his family.

I needed a space that was away from "others" because I need to reflect and to work on me. I needed to simplify my life, getting rid of the burdens we carry, physical and mental.

And so it began, I sold or gave away most of my worldly possessions, the couches, the chairs, tables and other detritus of existing in the world. My criteria for living space was to look for a simple place, I wanted something that was "small" and for me that would mean leaving 750 square feet and filtering down everything so it fit in a much small space.

I am a craigslist junkie, I admit it. I check out everything from the free section, to the men seeking women section and right on thru to the best of section. I rarely buy anything from craigslist, but admit to using it to sell things. I always check whats available for rent.

Rent in this city is insane. In the last five years it has gone beyond reasonable right on thru to unattainable. But I look at the toney areas, the Kits beach, the west end, Yaletown etc. and realize never in my wildest dreams short of winning the lottery could I live in any of those areas. Then I check the funky areas like Commercial Drive and Broadway and Main, and those areas too have now escalated into the stratosphere as far as rent goes. I look at, but have never considered the outer fringes, like Surrey - yuck, Maple Ridge, Abbotsford - those areas still have rents I can manage, but are faceless, empty subdivisions filled with empty people.

But one day, I spotted something that appealed to me. A studio apartment. I always wanted to live in one. This said the description"tiny"  that is not forthcoming in Vancouver descriptions of real estate. All the new condos and apartments are really "tiny" at least to me. I was kind of keen on staying in this area, and by that I mean New West and close environs and this fit the bill, it was just over the line in Burnaby, just below Edmonds. I set up the appointment to view and at 6:30 on the day of viewing, I was there. It wasn't an apartment at all, it was a laneway house.

Laneway houses are all the rage here, its like a little house built in someones backyard. But tiny, holy crap it was 221 square feet, most people have garden sheds bigger than that. I knew it was what I needed to do the minute I saw it.

It worked out so that I got the place, even with my two happy little dogs. And that means the new journey begins. And all journeys take courage my love.