I am not facing immediate homelessness. Nobody who makes $100,000 a year and assets in the bank in Upstate NY is going to be tossed out on the street as long as they continue to work hard and keep their salary and assets growing. That fear is not rational.

Yet, I don’t know what a home really is to me. I get it’s a place to shave and shit, a place to bed down, cook a meal and shower in the morning between the days spent at work and out in the wilderness. An address for legal notices, a place to hold one over. A home can be just that or it could be a homestead, part of one’s identity and lifestyle.

I have over the years heard the truth about home but wanted to plug my ears every time I heard it and said it must not be true.

• That you have to live near where you work or face an ungodly commute
• Most good jobs are in the city, in undesirable locations
• The better you are at your job, the more they pay you – to make it harder for you to quit
• Buying a house means investing not just a lot of money but time to, making repairs, mowing grass, cleaning and improving it
• Starting a homestead means animals to feed and care for constantly – you can’t take off to the woods for several days or weeks
• Life is full of compromise – there is no such thing as the perfect property – regardless of cost

At some point I will have to move from my dirty, diaplolated apartment of 17 years. I should not fear that day, it’s a time to cast off the old and broken and unwanted and start anew. I’ll have the chance most likely to recover what I want, and a chance to break free of old routine.

Ultimately what matters is my own life, not the heap of pulverized junk that I once owned in the heap on the outskirts of town. Someday I do want to settle down and own that homestead but when push comes to shove not today. I mean I liked that rundown I looked at a few weeks back but I’m not ready for it on many levels yet. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be preparing and learning to someday be a homesteader and a homeowner but not here and now.