I try to walk a fairly Spiritual path. I endeavor to be aware of my surroundings, be compassionate with people, spend time in Nature, etc. So when life changes come along, I like to take time and do some reflection on the past and how I got from point A to point B.

Spirit can be pretty direct with you if you are courageous enough to listen and take heed.

I was thinking back to my last few apartment moves this last weekend as I make the move from my old place to a new one.

My home before this one was a nice condo I rented. It had a small washer/dryer combo, a balcony with storage closet and a fireplace. It was also the last home of my friend and soul mate, Bill. He spent the last 4 ½ months of his life with me there. I couldn’t move right away because I was grieving and it was our last home together.

Spirit forced the move when the owner told me he was selling the place and I had 30 days to get out. Some people would have gotten angry but I knew the deeper reason for it all; I was stuck in my grief and depression and needed to move on. I wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t been forced to.

That marked a big transition in my life: I was not the same person I had been before he died. It changed me in so many ways and marked a spiritual shift for me.

Now I’m getting ready to move again. I moved into this place in 2001. Several relationships and family passing’s have happened in this place. Not that anyone died in my actual home mind you but I have taken in some of their belongings.

This apartment is the last one that represents my heterosexual life and is the last of that “me”. I find it funny and appropriate too that the apartment will undergo a renovation once I am gone from there. Everything that I know it to be will be taken out and replaced with something newer. My past there will be erased. Like my straight life.

Now I’m moving into a new place with my wife and we will begin our lives together. Yeah, we have lived together for a year now but in this old place, we couldn’t really begin “us”; there was too much of my past cluttering up the energy.

And so with moving comes the purging. Purging of everything that I don’t want/need/use/etc. I also find it a testament to my depression over the last few years because I find things and projects that were great “ideas” but I never did anything with because it was too much work. In my family, we call those “UFO’s” (unfinished objects). I have a ton of those. And they are going away.

I’m keeping some things. Some in storage simply because the apartment is too small. Book collections that I have worked hard to acquire, cookbooks of a unique nature, favorite items. Other stuff is being donated, or given away or trashed. I’m being brutal with myself.

I’m peeling off the layers of my past and of who that Hilary was. And I’m ready to learn about who this new Hilary is as a gay married woman. Some emotions surface but I’m surprised it’s not more. Maybe that’s because I’m ready for this change and I’m not fighting it this time.