I spent yesterday tidying up at home, and waiting for my insurance company to send someone. Still needing to find serial numbers, receipts, and the sorts of documentation insurers may want on items that have been stolen, I spent the morning combining the search with the housekeeping. It’s been more than 24 hours since I came home to the chaos of the break-in; I still find myself checking all the doors and windows to be sure they are locked, as though that would have made a difference (it’s my default to keep them locked).

Most of the lingering anxiety and agita have diminished. Late in the afternoon, an actual detective stopped by, asked some additional questions, photographed muddy footprints under the window through which someone (or multiple someones) accessed the apartment on Tuesday late in the afternoon. His visit, encouragingly, came with the suggestion that it is possible they found one or more of my belongings in an area pawn shop (well, that’s where they would have been headed, sure).  I find myself hoping it is the laptop, willing to shrug off the rest as “excess baggage”. He seemed very pleased that I had the serial numbers, receipts, and invoices.

There’s one thing about this experience that I know the recovery of my stolen goods won’t restore, and no amount of investigating will resolve it; this place no longer feels safe. This place is no longer “home” – at least not now. Maybe that will change? I’m open to that – change is. I know my heart, pretty well actually, and I suspect this moment will continue to catalyze the search for a more permanent long-term residence on a mortgage instead of a lease. In the meantime, I suppose I won’t be too hard on myself for checking doors and windows, or waking up feeling wary in the darkness. Under the circumstances, those things are no longer a matter of “being silly” in a “perfectly safe place”, just a reaction to a demonstrated lack of security in an unsafe world. Wow. That sounds pretty grim.

A pause to appreciate something nice can be so helpful. 🙂

I take a few minutes to breathe deeply, to relax. I sip my coffee in the predawn quiet. I am at the dining table. The quiet here isn’t silence. The trickle of the aquarium, the noise of the refrigerator, the distant whine of a train idling at the platform, the tick of the clock, and my tinnitus, all remind me that quiet is not a volume setting, it tends rather to be a place I find within myself. I’m not there yet. It may be awhile. I nod knowingly, to myself, and correct my posture – as though that changes anything else, at all. Well, if nothing else, it feels correct (and therefore corrected), which also feels more comfortable – and more ordered – which tends to promote that sense of “things being okay”, that often precedes a sense of safety… all of which I need to feel “at home”. I’ll get there yet. It’s a journey, and I’ve had to begin again.

The panic and hysteria of Tuesday night are behind me. Now it’s tasks and processes, restoring order, finding a feeling of safety again, and recovering my quality of life along the way. The insurance company let me down and missed on their service level agreement, by failing to reach out to be before 5 pm last night. Humans being human, no doubt. I never found myself angry about it. I didn’t honestly want the face-to-face contact with strangers in my space to continue. The day spent alone, quietly, was good healing time spent tidying up, and meditating. It felt enough of a relief from distraction that I am now acutely aware that the TV – really, video media of many types – had overstayed its welcome, and exceeded whatever unstated ideal use standard I apparently do have. I’m not missing it.

I didn’t sleep much (or well) on Tuesday, and I was too fatigued to make much sense of things, yesterday. Most of the day I was fairly numb, and focused on practical tasks – the doing of which was keeping me awake for the expected arrival of the insurance person. Once 5 pm came and went, I began to wind down for the evening. I don’t recall if I had dinner… I remember having lunch (around 3 pm, I think). I crashed for the night very early – around 7:30 pm? I woke to the alarm. I smile, recognizing that I clearly did feel safe enough (and fatigued enough) to sleep deeply. I take a moment to sit with that awareness for some minutes. My conscious perception of safety is not a perfect match for my implicit awareness – and taking time to be aware that I feel safer that I may suggest to myself when I think about it seems worth doing. Thoughts and feelings are different elements of our consciousness, neither is the ideal leader (for me); I work toward balancing them. Being very human, I mostly practice. I often fail. I’m okay with the failures; I learn the most from those, and I can begin again (apparently) any number of times. 🙂

I notice the clock; it’s already time to get ready to head to the office. I go to the studio to grab my laptop bag to more comfortably return to the office with my work laptop (I brought it home from the office in a tote!! lol)… and discover that my laptop bag is… gone. Well, of course. They took the laptop, only makes sense that they’d have looked all around the place for the laptop bag that was carefully put away in the back of a closet. So weird. I’m guess I’m glad they took such care… I mean… if I get it back it will lovely if it isn’t scratched up or wrecked. I feel a wave of anxiety sweep over me. “What am I not noticing is missing??” I take another deep breath, and relax; if I haven’t noticed it is missing, how important to me is it really?

Today is a good day for perspective. Today is a good day to stay engaged in this present moment, right  here. I am okay right now. 🙂 Still takes practice. 😉