It came to me tonight. I have been, since I put the house on the market, so afraid all the time that I have been frozen in time. Needing to sell the house so that I could survive. And you know what? I am going to survive whether the house sells or not. I am going to survive if the moon comes up made of green cheese. I am going to survive if I break out in pink polka dots and purple stars. I am going to survive.

So, what would I say to you if I wasn’t so afraid? I would say to you that it’s okay, in fact it’s splendid, to be 62 years old. I would say to you that no matter what happens I will survive. I am going to say to you that even if my little dog who was a puppy mill breeder and has “issues” and pees in the house pees in the house I can clean up after her and everything will be okay. I will throw out dog beds and mop floors and buy products that naturally get rid of dog odors and I will make things as nice as I can and everything will be okay, and if someone comes to look at the house and says that it smells “too doggy,” oh well, I will have done the best that I can. I am not someone who is messy and careless and doesn’t care. I am someone who will be doing the very best that she can and that will be good enough for some people and not for others. And I guess I am just not for those others. I am someone who cares and tries and does my best.

I want to say to you that I am 62 and I have worked hard for months on a book that I have just put aside because I spent too much time talking about being bipolar and apologizing for it and I am not going to do that anymore. I am bipolar. I have issues. That will always be a part of who I am. But I am not going to spend a year or two of my life writing a book explaining about being bipolar and apologizing for it. It will enter the picture because it is my truth but it is not my only truth. I am a strong woman who has accomplished a lot in her life and has a lot more that she will accomplish and I am utterly thrilled thinking about all of the things that are ahead of me. I am a woman who is in the middle of the blossoming of her full powers, and damn it feels so good. I am doing a lot right now and I am going to do more. And none of this has anything to do with whether my house sells or not.

I want to say to you that I am not afraid to be who I am, fully, and in aspect to the sun, the moon and the stars. I can tell you that I have decided, finally, to lose the weight that weighed me down, and if it takes two or three years to lose it all that’s alright by me because every single day I am doing the best that I can to lose it, and I am using my gifts to build a life that a 60 plus year old woman can, and I know that I am young enough to have a life that is glorious still, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to do so.

I want to tell you that I am not afraid to be my age, and further, that I am grateful to be my age, because when I was younger I had no idea how precious life was, how truly magical life is and can be, and now I am fully ready to reach for all the good that life can hold and to cherish it and to celebrate it. I can tell you that in planning to sell this house I got rid of so much that was precious to me I thought that maybe I couldn’t live or breathe and that no amount of trying to move forward was ever going to get me the life I was giving up, but that in giving up what I gave up I made way for a new life that was bigger and better than anything that I had ever had or dreamed or imagined.

I got rid of every pot, every piece of garden art — and there was a lot — so many plants I can’t count, and the yard looks barren and empty, and still, and yet, the emptiness yields an expansive space for more than I ever dreamed or imagined. I have moved beyond limited to limitless and no amount of things given up will equal what I have still to live and dream and be and imagine.

I have not sold my house and some days I can’t breathe trying to imagine what will happen to me if I don’t have the money from selling the house to live on, and yet… and yet… there is so much life that has nothing to do with any of that that I am shocked just thinking about it and I know that I will move past this and live my way into unimaginable glory.

I am 62 and I have not sold my house yet and I live with 4 dogs who may create little problems here and there but I love them with all my heart and they give me more love than the dollars and cents of it all that comes from selling a house. And if I sell the house despite the issues that these four dogs bring then it will be meant to be and we five will go on gloriously into our next abode and we will snuggle our way into all that that life brings. Gosh they are my darlings and I will no longer wake up shaking like a leaf even as they are snuggled into me being terrified that I won’t be able to sell a house because they are here.

I want to tell you, oh yes, I really want to tell you, that no matter where you are and if you have a house to sell or not and if you are 62 or some other age that wherever you go there you are and I am here and it is fine and it is good and it is, in fact, perfect for right here, right now, and I intend to live my way fully into it and make it work because it was meant to work if I am here in the middle of this glorious mess called life.

If I wasn’t so afraid, and as I write this I am not too afraid, to tell you that I love my life and by friggin’ God I am going to celebrate it, all of it, all that it is and all that it might be, and it is all going to be okay, whether I sell my house, when I sell my house, or not.

Damn, and good golly Miss Molly, this is right and I am fine, right here, right now, and if I hadn’t been so afraid I would have told you sooner, but I’m telling you now. And isn’t it about damned time? It surely is…