The expected rarely happens in life. With most of what we intend and set out to do, the exact opposite usually happens. Case and point: I put my sister—whom I love and trust—in charge of finding an apartment for me in Florida. When my nephew initially drove his car through the entrance gates, as it was a gloomy and a rainy day, I sensed an expectation about to be dashed. I walked to the door of my new apartment through a maze of dank hallways. As my sister, Cheryl, had already moved in with no furniture, because I had it all on a truck in transit, the home was filled with a sole folding tables, a borrowed ugly chair, a plastic blue child’s table, yellow bedroom furniture, a blow-up bed, and literally, boxes set up to be furniture. I felt I had arrived into an abandoned slum, and I was about to play war with the angry, apparently, huge dogs barking and trying to knock down my neighbor’s door. I’m thinking, but you said this had wood floors and granite countertops. It had linoleum, fake wood floors. It did have the granite countertops and a cheap stainless kitchen, but it wasn’t so nice and certainly not roomy, as promised in the pictures.
I had just sold my beautiful home in a great neighborhood in Nashville with five gardens, to be jammed into a 1000 sq. ft apartment with a patio the size of small rug. I felt like I had stepped down fourteen notches to Slum Dog Millionaire status. Every hope had been dashed. My blood sugar was low, because I hadn’t eaten since a smoothie before I jumped on the first leg of the flight to Atlanta, only after being informed by a good friend at 5:30 a.m. that a truck had blown up under a supporting bridge on the main Interstate to get to the airport. During rush hour, morning traffic, we would have to inch our way to the Nashville Airport for almost two hours. We did, however, get to the airport on time, as I had downloaded the Delta App for my phone and checked in for my flight online, simply swiped my phone under the pass reader, and took to my seat carrying my trusty computer bag. My other piece of baggage, I was informed, would have to be put under the plane, fortunately for no extra cost.
The first flight to Atlanta took as long as it did for my computer to boot up. My layover was supposed to be exactly 20 minutes in Atlanta, so I had to rush to the subway to another hub and get to Gate 3, which wasn’t a far reach from the train. However, when I got there, frustrated passengers fidgeted, as something had just been announced that I wasn’t privy to: The plane was being examined for a possible mechanical problem.
Ninety minutes later, we were ushered to Gate 23 only to wait again for a new plane; this one, hopefully, without mechanical issues. I still hadn’t eaten, because I was still full from the protein-fortified smoothie that was only eight dollars. So, I got on the tw0-hour plane flight with only a handful of almonds. By the time I got to Ft. Lauderdale, through a severe storm that diverted the plane five minutes after us to Oralando, I kissed the wet, Ft. Lauderdale ground.
Even the weather wasn’t sunny, as I had dreamed, when I got off of the plane. It was torrential. Honestly, it was as if every power on earth had been working against me to get to Florida, yesterday. As still as I had tried to be through the malaise of negative elements, when I hit the apartment, I was hungry and completely dismayed. What had I done? I moved to a place I had never seen, which had little to no room for any of my furniture and beautiful art. While in Nashville, my sister had told me that the master bedroom may not be as big as expected, but, I had a plan. If it were too small, I could have a small loft built for my bed to create more space for a little man cave, where I could meditate and watch television. The ceiling was so low in the bedroom. I could reach up and touch it with my hand. Every plan was crumbling before my eyes.
I told my nephew to take me to get some dinner, as I thought maybe food would make the apartment look different, or, at least, change my attitude. After a great Cuban meal, I did see from a different perspective, thankfully. When my baby sister arrived at the apartment with my mom, we all began to laugh, almost immediately, and suddenly, I realized why I had sacrificed my comfortable life and business to move here. It wasn’t for the apartment, for my expectations of my living situation, which will probably end up looking pretty awesome after I decorate it, but for my amazing family and the love and security I always feel when I’m around them.
We spent the rest of the evening planning where the movers would place all of our belongings and building my sister’s futon, which she had bought at Wal-Mart and was made up of 100 moving parts. Lori and I started out frustrated, then every comment about screwing harder, jamming this in there, and put that in that part in this bigger hole, became fodder for hysteria. Even my mom joined in, as she murmured, “You all are crazy!”
I was fortunate to be home. Yes, when I let go of my expectation, when I reached into my soul for God’s guiding hand, I realized that no matter how hard it was to get here, no matter how small the apartment, I arrived safely and into the hands of people who gathered me closely and into loving arms. I traded my Nashville tribe of friends for my beautiful family that God will lead me into this encore career of my life. I’m blessed. Truly blessed.
***
This Novel is about a young boy growing up in small-town America, being gay and having a Baptist minister father and a mother who hides whiskey in his room. He never knew what to expect, but looked at life with innocence enough that life changed for him.
[Take the time to look at Bo’s bookshelf of self-help books, novels, healing downloads, and yoga DVD. All of Bo’s books helps people such as you, make SIGNIFICANT CHANGE with habits, find your SOULMATE, your PASSION, reach YOUR DREAMS, and dictate your own FUTURE. Chosen to show his new hypnotherapeutic techniques on The Learning Channel (TLC) and also given the opportunity to teach at the world conference for Learning, and received the award of excellence for Helping Overcome Obesity in Nashville, Bo Sebastian is the writer and director of Finding Authentic You and Uncommon Gay Spiritual Warrior. Go directly to Amazon/Amazon Kindle: ]
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