On a landlords departure

The last text message before the definitive farewell.

I wake up with a slight irritation. Not the best sleep.
My partner tends to move. Yes, he moves at night. He doesn’t sleep eight hours like a rock, like I do. And if he moves, I wake up.

I’m working on this.
Placing my energetic boundaries.
Already, I’ve stopped waking up when I could hear him think.

Now, if he wakes and doesn’t move too much, I can usually snuggle back into the pillow and return to my dreams.

But if he wakes, opens the door, goes to the bathroom, comes back, pulls the blankets, readjusts his pillows… by then, I’m wide awake.
He might finally be starting to settle in as he reaches over to touch me, just as I’m sinking into sleep—and I’m jolted back up again.

I try not to be irritated.
Before, my skin would prickle. I’d be internally writhing in agony.
Do I ask him to go to his little cot in the loft?

We have an agreement: if I can’t sleep because he’s restless, he goes there.
But I hate asking anyone to get up and change beds in the middle of the night—let alone my adored partner.

Last night, I didn’t get to that point.
I consciously decided this will not get to me.
I have some control over whether my mind activates or not.

I managed to fall back asleep and woke up to the sound of my roommate driving to work at 5:11.

I don’t mind this.
It’s like a pre-alarm wake-up—where you realize dawn hasn’t quite broken and you get to steal another 45 minutes of sleep.
The chickens begin their morning cacophony around 5am too, but oddly they never bothered me.
Maybe because I assume they have no control over their impulses. Unlike humans.

I can’t blame a rooster for sensing the sun.
To do so would ruin the romance of the silhouette at dawn.

But this time, I can’t steal back the 45 minutes.
My mind’s already on.
There’s a slight discomfort in my solar plexus.

I like to take the first minutes of the morning to curate my wake-up—a morning hug, or a deeper snuggle into the covers, noticing how good it feels to be in my body.
That slow light sneaking into my eyes.

Usually, I think of what I’m grateful for, or what I’m excited about.
But today, I thought about the urgency of a text message I needed to send.

I didn’t have to send it.
But if I didn’t… maybe there wouldn’t be another chance.
It might already be too late.

It’s a strange thing when you need to bid someone farewell—forever.

Ok, he’s my landlord.
Not my best friend. Not even a friend. But we had a relationship.

The first time I met him, he already knew I’d be a good fit for their home.
I had put up an ad on a Facebook rental group sharing who I was, my budget, and what I was looking for.

The impulse came after I was nearly convinced that Hawaii didn’t want me anymore.

I couldn’t find anything that fit.
The last place I almost rented—out of scarcity—smelled of mold. It was managed by a lonely man who’d live above me.
I fell off my scooter the first time I visited.
The second time, my battery died.

Very clear signs. But I still tried to make it work.
I thought I had no other choice.

But I’ve learned:
When I say NO to what isn’t aligned, a more aligned YES will arrive.

I told that landlord no.
Then I meditated.

And the universe—God, etc.—told me: just ask.

So I posted my ask.
My current landlord reached out.
They hadn’t even posted the ad yet. They were willing to wait three weeks until I returned from France to show me the place.

When I saw it, my whole body said YES.

They gave me the lease.
No credit check. No references.

They knew I couldn’t afford the whole place alone and that I’d be finding roommates.

They said:
“We trust you.”

They were a couple, married nearly 50 years.
They’d raised their kids here. Bought the property off a nudist community in the early ’80s.

We often wondered about the nooks and the excessive number of outlets.
Only our imaginations could fill in the blanks.

They were old hippies. Cool. In their late 70s.
He shook my hand after I signed the lease.

“Welcome to the team.”

And that’s what it felt like—a team.
We were collaborating in the stewardship of this home.

What a different paradigm than my last landlord…
The uptight heiress with a 40-page lease that detailed what type of plate to put under a plant.
She forbid washing your car. She tracked every fork and lamp.

Oh, and she was a millionaire.

I said no when she raised the rent from $6,300 to $6,800 after we complained about mold.
No plan B.
But again: I trusted something better would arrive.

I lived in Bolinas, CA, a very desirable little town one hour from San Francisco, boasting wild nature and limited population due to a water meter moratorium that had been established in the ’70s. Water was limited and thus construction was limited.

My roommate and I had manifested one of the largest, most beautiful homes in Bolinas to rent.
It was stunning, with epic views—an architectural, full-windowed three-story home where my master bedroom had a vaulted glass ceiling, a bathroom as big as a room, a three-person jacuzzi bathtub, and a full-windowed view of the lagoon and Mt. Tam from my California king-size bed.

I had no next step, except the assurance that there will always be a way not to be homeless.
I didn’t want to live anywhere else in the Bay Area.
I didn’t want to take a step down from the dreamy level of home living I had already obtained.

Then I received an email from a client, forwarding an ad for a 4-month sublet in Captain Cook, Hawaii.
I had never been to Hawaii. And with my son living in France, it seemed absolutely impossible.

Upon reading the email, everything in my body said YES.

Two years later, I’m in a different home now, but in the same area of the island—with an even better home and a full ocean view.

I’ve now explored other islands and other areas of the Big Island, and this is the area that most resonates.
I didn’t know how long it could last.

The flights to Europe were 25–30 hours.
But somehow, it has now been two years, and I still see my French son five times a year—here or there.

I finally got my Hawaiian driver’s license and told the IRS. It’s official.

And I’m in this beautiful home provided for me by a totally different relationship to a landlord.

Yesterday, his wife was below my balcony. She had been cleaning the “Ohana” (small extra unit) further up the land.

“He’s dying,” she said.

I knew that he had recently gone through chemotherapy—lung cancer.
He had made it through. The last messages I got from him were:
“Thanks for helping my wife out. I hope I feel better to take her out to dinner this weekend. It’s our 50th anniversary.”

She had told me a few days ago that he was back in the hospital.

The other day, I walked over to the extra unit on the property as I saw her car pull up.
She stumbled up the rock stairway and fell backwards into the bushes. She promptly picked herself up, with her shoe slipping off her foot, and continued to climb the stairs.
I grabbed the vacuum out of her hand and asked to help her.
“I’m fine,” she said.

The other day, she came to paint our patio and collapsed on our carpet when she was done.
She’s trying to hold it all up on her own.

Yesterday she stood there, below the balcony.

“He’s dying.”

“Wait, I’m coming,” I said, and hurried out the front door and down the steps to meet her in the gravel driveway.
“I’m so sorry, honey.”
She let me hug her as she sobbed into my shoulder.

“He’s so worried about me,” she said.
“He’s worried I can’t take care of everything. He doesn’t want to leave me with all the work. He was crying.”

What do you do?

I just held her.
Eventually she pulled away. We barely know each other.
I pay rent and let them know if something is wrong in the house.
I greet them kindly if they need to come by.

We talk mostly via text.
This is the most I’ve seen her in the nearly year and a half I’ve lived here.

We have an easy relationship with her husband—he handles the maintenance, she handles the finance.

“I hope he makes it till Friday,” she says.
“His sister is flying out. I think he’ll wait to say goodbye to her.”

She’s going to the hospital twice a day and coming here to clean the carpets in the extra unit in between hospital visits.

“To each his own,” said my current roommate when I told her their story.
She will be leaving the home soon, as I come to a realization that not everyone has the same level of empathy.
It wasn’t a good fit. That phrase made it clear.

I’m there at 5:11 this morning with my phone already turned on.

“I wish you a smooth journey. It has been a pleasure to be part of the team caring for the home and in kind relations with you and your wife. I’ll do what I’m able to support her where possible in my role as tenant. Sending you a fond farewell.”🕊️

There is something strange in being able to wish someone well on their journey to the other side.

We weren’t close, but we appreciated each other.
They thanked me for being such a good tenant, and I thanked them for the trust they gave me.

I had free rein to have clients at the home, change out roommates, and even potentially have a friend with a dog—even though there was a no-pet policy.

This was healing for me.
A different paradigm from the hierarchical landlord-tenant relationship.

Part of the team in the common interest of making a home feel like home.
Tending to each other and the interests of both parties.

I sit in silent contemplation.
I cried some tears—not because of my relationship to him, but for them.
Their 50 years of being partners, friends, and lovers.

She said,
“You know the thing I’ll miss most? We would tell each other everything. We could talk about it all. Now I won’t have anyone to do that with anymore.”

“I feel like I miss him already.”

Today, he is still in life.
And maybe tomorrow he will depart.

Such is life.
It’s a strange reality.
We all do it.
We are born, and we will all die.
And yet—there is something within us that still wants to fight the inevitable.

Today it feels like the inevitable was already declared.
But the beauty is the ability to tie up the loose ends,
say the goodbyes,
wave the white handkerchief,
and offer the love behind the words:

Bon voyage.

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