.

The next few weeks were full of annoyed delivery men riling up the house full of dogs. They dumped box after box of supplies ordered from Amazon on Lindsay’s front porch. (Did you know they make electric box cutters? Surprisingly fun little tool Lindsay let me borrow: https://amzn.to/34qVvXq) Cardboard filled the blue recycling bin and there was more piling up in the basement. It’s crazy to think how many boxes it takes to acquire all your new personal belongings through online shopping… and this was me thinking as a newly born minimalist who has to fit all these things in a compact Prius with two dog crates taking up most of the passenger and “trunk” space.

It was within a week or two that I decided on a plan that seemed a little crazy.

Fire had stolen a sense of stability from me, but rather than immediately seek it once more I was going to embrace the freedom it had allowed me. I decided I’d spend the next few months (or more?) traveling and staying with friends and family that I didn’t have a chance to see often. I felt excitement boiling up in my belly the more I thought about it. As I started asking prospective hosts if they would allow me and two furry guests to hunker down with them for a while over the course of the next year, it became more and more apparent that this was something that actually could happen. I was going on an adventure.

My first stop would be the Chicago suburbs for a quick Thanksgiving dinner with some of the family, then a trip to the City for a month with my sister, Heather. After that I would return to Wisconsin, staying with a long time friend for two months while I get all the details ironed out. Then a trip to Florida for March to stay with my friend Nichelle. After that was a bit up in the air, but I had several other friends willing to open their homes for me once we discussed a timeline. I was set until the summer at least.

As exciting as it was to think about, each day that passed brought a little more anxiety about the wreckage I still had to deal with. Several emails to the landlord brought no real news about when we’d be able to go inside and evaluate the damage to our possessions. Three weeks had gone by before I really started to worry. I would be leaving later that same week and I wouldn’t be back until January. I didn’t want to have to make the trip back and forth. How could they really not let us go in for three whole weeks?

I finally got the okay to go in on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, the day before I was leaving town.

I didn’t expect much to save. The unrealistic mental state I was in was apparent by the fact that I thought I could go through the things that were left and that I wanted to keep on a long lunch from work. Boy, was I wrong.

To be continued…