Fear or Love? (A Tiny Home Dilemma)

I don't know if you've already seen this amazing convocation speech that Jim Carrey made at Maharishi University. I know it's been making the rounds on the interwebs.

Here's the clip that's inspiring today's blog post:

I saw this for the first time a few months ago and I'm slowly realizing that this clip sums up the dilemma with which I've been grappling over the past several months.

If you've been reading my blog over the past year or so, you'll know that I bought a Tiny Home in December 2013. I set it up on some friends' land last spring and lived in it through the summer. Then, as winter approached, I realized that winterizing it was going to be a pretty big task. I had gotten depressed and all of the things I needed to do felt like too much work. I could barely put one foot in front of the other, let alone figure out and manifest all the things I needed to make my house work over the winter. The prospect of living in a draughty, small, thin-shelled structure for the winter felt out-of-control, risky and unsafe.

Running scared

So, I decided to abandon my tiny house for the winter. I found a house that I could rent – a place with central heating, electricity and running water. And I set myself the task of deciding what I wanted to do about my living arrangements going forward.

I was full of doubts – I doubted that I could handle the challenges of Tiny, (semi) off-grid Living; I doubted that I was living in the right place. Part of me wanted to bug out, move to Montreal, Ireland, South America – to get away from everything. I batted around a half-a-dozen locations and ideas. Everywhere from West Dublin to Québec City to Galway to Buenos Aires.

I weighed many pros and cons.

Fear had me in its clutches. Every option I considered felt scary, unsatisfactory and just plain wrong.

Embracing love

While some of my fear is perfectly rational, the worst of it was probably a by-product of my depression. When we feel like we are all alone in the darkness, of course we are afraid. Nothing feels possible – to stay, to go, there is no good option.

Finally, I am coming out of my depression and starting to feel more like myself. Love is starting to raise her voice again. I love my friends and my community on the west bank of the LaHave. I love the beaches, the quiet, the sky. I love my house. It is adorable! Every time I go to check on it, it glows its warm heart at me. It hugs me. I feel absolutely at home.

As usual, it's not Either/Or – it's Both

I'm still scared. I'm not a particularly handy person nor, frankly, am I that interested in becoming one. This is a hard challenge to take on as a single person. I need help, and asking for help is not always my forte. And, at the same time, I want to embrace this challenge and see if I can make it work. I want to engage in the experiment of winterizing my home and living in it through an entire year.

I don't know exactly how I'm going to acheive this. I have some ideas. More will come to me. But I don't know if I will succeed. Maybe it will work for me and maybe it will not. Time will reveal the answers, but only if I try. If I don't try, I will never know.

And while fear is still a factor, I know that this decision is being made from a place of love.

PS: Jim Carey's convocation speach is worth watching in its entirety.