“Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play…”

So begins “Shake it Out” by Florence + The Machine, and while the intent and basic message of that song is much darker and far more serious than my thoughts for today, the opening still sings to me, follow along if you will….

A little over a year ago, I was feeling close to clinically depressed. My energy was low, I had a hard time finding joy in almost anything. We had made the decision to leave SC and were just waiting till it was time to put the house on the market and start hoping. The holidays were looming and again it looked like another year would pass where it was just the two of us.

If you have been reading, though, you know what happened: The house sold, and in the middle of September, we landed in Niantic, CT going from a one story home to a three level townhouse and from owners (with a lot of responsibility for so many things) to renters (where we write one check and if something goes awry we put in a call or place an “order” on the website).

To say that our experiences in just this short amount of time have been the diametric opposite of the last year or so, would be THE understatement of the century.

Let me start with the major emotional change: Where I was sullen and sad, I now face each day with such unbridled joy and excitement, that I feel like Alastair Sim at the conclusion of Scrooge (yes, that’s the real title, though everyone, myself included, knows it as A Christmas Carol, the story upon which it’s based). If you’ve never seen it, you must, if you have you know of the scene toward the end where he wakes up after the three spirits have visited and he is as “giddy as a school boy” and dancing around and attempts to stand on his head. This is how I feel very day now and it’s not just one thing it’s a combination of everything.

Warm, friendly, empathetic people, merchants across the board who take the concept of customer service and knowledge to the top level. Medical care that is second to none, great food, fabulous options from large supermarkets to Fromage in Old Saybrook where I could simply put a chair in and live there until I exhausted their cheese selections (figure at two a day it would take about two or three months on that alone). The opportunity to be at The Kate for a variety of different shows in under 20 minutes, lunch today at The Monkey Farm, a large, boisterous “dive bar” with great food, great folks and where everyone is sipping something great, even at 1 pm on a Friday. Couple all of that with being close enough to have made an easy trip so see my oldest granddaughter smack a home run in a tournament game, to be able to go and have dinner with friends in great places, to celebrate birthdays and other events in person without having to stress over flight plans, hotels, rental cars etc I’m smiling just writing this

Yes, winter is going to come, yes it gets darker earlier but when you balance that with every single positive aspect of the changes, and the joy that accompanies every moment of every day I feel like I’ve managed to go back in time and pick up many many years of energy and happiness.

The best part overall is the realization that the detour was simply the opportunity learn what was important and what meant the most. As were were very tired during the initial unpacking, a friend I’ve known for 45 years sent me a text with some lines from the Wizard of Oz and I think says more in a few lines than I’ve said here….Thank you Mary….

Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda: She wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
Scarecrow: What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy: Well, I—I think that it, that it wasn’t enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em — and it’s that — if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?
Glinda: That’s all it is!
Scarecrow: But that’s so easy! I should’ve thought of it for you –
Tin Man: I should have felt it in my heart –
Glinda: No, she had to find it out for herself.