The End is Near!

I can’t put all my business on the World Wide Web, but I can say that the day of reckoning is nearly here. My dad is about to close on a farm in northern Florida. Very shortly, my well-deserved captivity in Miami will come to an end.

The other day a friend asked if “the reality of the move” was sinking in. She was talking about my dad, but it made me think. I have not fully absorbed it, myself.

Physical captivity ends quickly. When they release a man from prison, it takes less than a day to put him on the street. The passage through the prison gate takes an instant. The time it takes for him to feel free inside is longer.

It sounds dramatic, comparing a move between a reasonably affluent American city and a pleasant rural home to being released from prison, and of course, I am not suggesting my time here has been anything like what prisoners go through. I’m just talking about the principle. I felt trapped in this place. It seemed like all my efforts to break free were hindered or cut off. I felt (feel) claustrophobic. I look forward to seeing the horizon once in a while. I look forward to getting away from these rude, coarse people.

In a text message yesterday, I referred to the new place as “the farm,” as if I already owned it. I crossed a little threshold there. I don’t have to call it “the house we’re buying” or “the place we made an offer on.” It’s “the farm” now.

What will I do up there? I only have one friend in the whole county. I’ll be fine. These days, I only have one friend in Dade County. It won’t be much different. I have friends in Orlando and Kissimmee, and I know they’ll visit. Once I start attending a church, I’ll make friends. I don’t need a lot of people to be happy. I tend to pick up parasites and abusers, and a small crowd is easier to vet.

For the first month, I’ll be busy settling in, and I’ll also be taking care of problems in Dade County. I know I’ll have to come back here several times. I was dreading it, but then I thought about it, and I realized it’s much better to visit this place than to live here. When I visit Marion County, I leave an unpleasant place, relax in a nice place, and drive back to an unpleasant place for a long stay. When I visit Miami, it will be a photographic negative of that experience. The pain of Miami will be fleeting, and when I leave, it will be for longer and longer periods, soon to become permanent.

I wish I didn’t have to come back. It would be fine with me if this county sank into the earth. But I can cope with visiting. The pain will be mingled with triumph.

Moving is like settling down into a bath that kills ticks, fleas, lice, and leeches. One by one, I will feel the little mouths and claws let go, and the slime of their presence will be washed away.

We live surrounded by spirits. Miami is a cesspool of demon worship, so I believe things are worse here. The county is full of Hispanics and Haitians who actively pursue demons and pledge their lives to them. It makes me wonder…will I feel better up north simply because I’m no longer living in a demonic hub? I’ll bet I do. I’ll bet things go better up there, simply because Satan has fewer personnel available to torment me, and because God has more people to fight them.

The money for the house will have to be wired. Most people buy homes with loans, so they don’t go through what I’m going through. I have to take a sizeable part of a person’s net worth and send it off in what amounts to a bank-to-bank email. There are all sorts of ways for that to go wrong.

While I was suffering with my continuing legal education [sic], I learned a lot about the ways criminals steal money in cyberspace. Here’s one of the smarter ways: a wire recipient sends you his banking info. A crook intercepts it, substitutes his own info, and sends it on to you. You use it, and your money ends up in Botswana.

When I first received wiring instructions, everyone kept telling me to call the escrow people and read the information back to them. The realtor told me. The escrow people told me. I didn’t know why until I found out about the substitution scam. I guess there are horror stories.

I will be a very happy guy when I get confirmation that the money has been received. I confirmed the information twice and printed out a hardcopy just to be sure. I figure it will be hard for people in Botswana to hack a piece of paper in the USA.

I suppose this will all seem real when I walk onto the land and see the movers carrying boxes in. I may start the tractor and zoom around the yard in circles to celebrate. Is it legal to drink and drive a tractor? We may well find out. I’m entitled. Noah knocked back a few when he got his new property.

That didn’t work out too well, though. Maybe I’ll just have a root beer.

A few days back, I realized I had the same mindset about heaven. I know that’s where I’m headed, but it’s still hard to believe it with my whole heart. Some day I’ll wake up in a place where everything is right. It will be a place where the arrogant, fatuous, transparently false slogans of Apple and Google could be applied without snickering: everything just works, and those who live there are not evil. It’s real. Northern Florida is real, and heaven is real. It’s going to happen.

Hope it won’t be long before I’m blogging via laptop from the north pasture.