On Leaving Home

I can see the church at the center of San Miguel de Allende from my bar.

I can see the entire city from my rooftop.

Those have been my views for the last dozen years.

It is one of the few homes in San Miguel that has a direct view of the City and its center but that is also a short, flat walk to all of it.

It is special and I feel fortunate that it has been my abode for longer than anyplace I have ever lived.

This is home.

For three more days. And then I will walk out of this compound for the last time.

Leaving my home was never in the plan. Indeed, I thought, I planned I would both live and die here.

Then came the unexpected, a massive bank fraud, my decision to retire from practice and the attendant travel. That was enough to open for my ex a door marked “Exit,” one I believe she had been looking for.

Separation was followed soon by divorce.

And a compound this size in the Centro of San Miguel de Allende had, over the years, become too valuable for me to buy her out, leaving sale as the only alternative.

That was then, and this is now.

I have collected all the keys, the openers, passwords, contact information for various vendors, and will leave them on my former desk along with a letter to the new owners.

And then this Wednesday morning I will close the gate for the last time to the long bougainvillea-covered drive leading to the house and the casitas and I will walk away.

Behind I will leave memories, good and bad.

It is hard, no impossible, to describe my feelings about this, if only because they change from day to day, hour to hour.

Failure comes to mind. Often. And I feel I have failed because this ending was not my plan.

The bank fraud, the separation, and the divorce have prepared me for this. I have come to understand after this many years that “my plan” is sometimes not “the plan,” that much of my life is outside my control and that trying to force-fit the proverbial round peg into the square hole only makes me tired and frustrated.

More importantly, it assumes, without evidence, that my plan is the best plan, that what I want to happen is what should happen. And I no longer make that assumption.

And so I will move on and, for the first time, let life lead.

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