Throwing in the towel

I'm ending my search for a new place to live. Apparently it does not exist. Every place at which I have looked has been too expensive, or a total dump that I would not wish on my worst enemy, or substandard in some way, shape or form. I'm exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally from this long search for a new home. It's now mid-semester here in a college town and the only listings for places are in luxury apartment complexes that, while very beautiful and spacious, are also hideously upscale and expensive. People tell me, well, that's what you get for wanting to live in a college town, but this is my lifelong home and I refuse to be priced out of living here. There must be something that will open up eventually that will work for me. Either that, or I am going to have to convince the University to save this house by moving it to their property on the next street over, the site of a house they once owned and for still inexplicable reasons, tore down. They could certainly afford to do that. The cost would be pocket change to them, but it would be a matter of convincing them that it would be worth their while to do so. They've already torn down so much of the housing in walkable neighborhoods nearby that I think that they could restore some goodwill to the town and perhaps move this house and rent it to older students and let me keep my place. I know, a serious long shot, if ever there was one. But as I am given to understand the way things work in this town at the moment, the City and the University are now partners, and the University banks surplus land that it owns to trade it with the City for land that they want.

However, the plot of land on the next street over is well into the residential part of the street and I cannot see it being terribly strategic for either the University OR the City. It's not big enough on which to build a commercial development, it's several blocks removed from the downtown and frankly, my house would fit perfectly on that lot with room to spare for parking and a driveway. Since the University owns it anyway, I don't see why they could not afford to pay for this house to be moved to their property. They own rental property around the area, including the house next door to the vacant lot of which I speak. I'm not sure why they own rental property, frankly, and I did not know that they were in the landlord business, but the way I see it, they could collect some rental revenue from my house that would more than compensate for the cost of moving it. It all makes total sense to me, and yeah, I'd probably have to move out for the duration of the move, but that's OK, I'd be happy to do so with the express knowledge that I could move back in again and put stuff back to where I am used to it being. The thing I like about where I have lived all these years is that, when I need or want something, I know where to find it and I do not have to go digging for it or worrying about it being in a storage locker miles away and generally inaccessible as a result. Everything I need is here with me in my apartment - my clothes, my books, my CDs, my computer, my things, and I know where they are when I want and need them. I would hate to have to live in a place where most of my stuff would have to be stored miles away in a locker where, if I needed something, I'd have to go over and search through storage bins and move tons of stuff around and have a hard time finding what I want or need. Nothing would annoy me more. I want to live someplace where I can find the things that I want and need and can get to them immediately when I want or need them. I think anyone could understand that feeling.

I'm just worried about living someplace from now on where I could not be united with my things and would only be able to have a few clothes with me and would have to go to a storage locker every few days to get what I want. That would drive me crazy. I could not take that. I don't have that kind of time and in the winter months, I would not be wanting to drive out in a snowstorm to go retrieve something that I want. I like having everything that I need where I want it to be and within reach when I want it. Just saves a whole lot of hassle. I'm just worried that I will never again be able to have all of my stuff in one place and will have to settle for having my things scattered to the winds and inaccessible. I could not bear to live like that and the thought of that keeps me up nights with fear and worry and doubt. I never know when I will want a particular book that I own and right now, if I need or want it, it's at hand. I'm trying to pare down as much as possible and to keep those things that I know that I honestly want, but it's tough. I often find myself at first deciding to get rid of something, and then changing my mind and deciding to keep it because I really want it after all. Just decided tonight about 4 books that at first I was going to pitch, then changed my mind over. I'm being as brutal as possible and getting rid of tons of old stuff, but there are things that I am not so certain about that what I ought to do is to put in to a "maybe" pile and come back to in a few days and see if I still want them. I've changed my mind about a few books and items of clothing that I decided to keep after all when I reconsidered them. Hard as it is to say goodbye to books, I know that I just can't keep every single one of them. I have to make a firm decision that I won't revisit certain books and be done with it and let them go. It makes me sad. Some of them represent a particular chapter of my life gone by, so in a sense, it's like saying goodbye to a particular part of my life and letting it go. It's very hard, and it breaks my heart, but it's time to let that part of my life go and move on, as tough as that is proving to be to do. I've shed more than a tear or two while downsizing as I recall fond memories of times gone by and say my farewells to all I hold dear.

I hate the fact that my future holds such terrifying uncertainty. I'm the kind of person who needs the very intense security of having a nice, easy and predictable life. I detest uncertainty and it has left me feeling a pit in my stomach that I will never again have someplace to call home. HOME. I so desperately want to be HOME again. HOME. A secure and sacred place that I can call my own. HOME......... Right now, I do not have that anymore, and the pain that it is causing me is so deep that I can scarcely stand it. I can hardly breathe anymore. I cry so much that I don't know when the pain will stop. And that is all I want. No more pain. An end to the feeling of having the one and only thing I cherish - HOME - ripped away form me forcibly. When will I ever be HOME again? When?