All at sea.

This whole house buying shenanigans has left me a little dislocated. In all the thrill of purchasing our very own house, we were so caught up in what we were getting, that we didn't maybe give full consideration to what we would no longer have.

So, amongst the excitement of acquisition and the promise of a stable future, there is grief and sadness, felt especially keenly by my lovely son. The fortunate creature had spent his whole entire known lifetime living in the one geographical location. Although we moved around a lot from one rental to another, we were always cocooned by the amazing coastal landscape and a known community.

In our new setting we are suffering some home-sea-sickness and feeling a bit displaced. We are having to appreciate that our responses to the new are indelibly tied to our responses to the loss of the old. And it is a real loss; a sense of drifting, disconnected from the landscape and the humans that populate it. We are no one in this new place. We are unknown and apart, where we used to be tethered down, held in our place in the world by our known-ness. There is a strange sense that anything could happen here, it feels a bit dangerous, a bit unnerving; we have lost sight of ourselves as others see us.

The very nature of home has shifted under our feet. And we are floundering, trying to reconcile a pervading sense of longing with the fact that we are home. Perhaps at the minute, it is more accurate to say, we are in our new house, but we are still looking to find our way home.