I have lived in a chaotic world for most of my life.

Not poetic chaos. Not inconvenience dressed up as hardship.

Military service. Noise that never really stopped. Orders that shaped your days and sometimes your thoughts. Rooms where you learned to scan exits without appearing to. Sleep that never fully went deep because some part of you stayed on watch. Years of discipline, tension, sacrifice. Years of responsibility that most people never see and don’t need to.

You learn things in that world.

You learn how to function tired.
You learn how to compartmentalize.
You learn how to remain steady while everything around you shifts.

What you don’t learn is how to turn it off.

Once that switch is flipped, it stays flipped.

Vigilance becomes instinct. Reflex. Muscle memory.

It is a superpower.

And it is a curse.

It keeps you safe.
It sharpens perception.
It lets you notice what others miss.

But sometimes it surges without warning — adrenaline with nowhere to go, tension that arrives before reason. The body reacting even when the room is quiet. The nervous system remembering things the calendar says are over.

I would like vigilance to take a break.

It doesn’t.

But inside this house, at least it can lower its volume.

If it spikes, if the body tightens before the mind catches up, the walls are thick. The world stays outside. No misunderstanding. No spectacle. No outside interpretation of an internal moment.

Inside these walls, even my hardest minutes are private.

That is safety.

Now I am retired.

And I want to enjoy the peace my sacrifices have purchased.

Not perform peace.

Actually feel it.

My dream home is not about hiding from people.

It is about finally being able to exhale without scanning the horizon first.

It stands at the edge of a small town where the road narrows and the noise fades before it reaches the porch. Gravel under the tires. Trees that bend but do not break. Nothing manicured for performance. Nothing curated for applause.

At the front of the yard stands a sign planted firmly in the soil:

NO SHITBIRDS

Bold. All caps.

And beneath it:

If you’re wondering if it’s you, turn around.

That sign is not anger.

It is clarity.

Anyone can enter this house.

But they enter with respect.

Respect for the space.
Respect for the work.
Respect for the quiet.
Respect for the fact that some habits were earned under pressure.

Anything less than that?

Kick rocks.

The house itself is solid—wood, stone, weight. Doors that close with authority. Windows placed for light, not spectacle. From the outside it looks calm. From the inside it feels secure.

Security matters.

Because when you have lived long enough in unpredictability, predictability becomes a luxury.

There is a room filled with books.

Shelves packed tight with cracked spines and penciled margins. Books that challenged me. Books that steadied me. Books that sat with me when silence felt too loud.

In the center sits a chair worn into shape by long evenings. Beside it, a small wooden table holding a cup of coffee. A lamp casting soft amber light over the page while the rest of the room rests in shadow.

In that room, something in me softens.

No one is issuing orders.
No one is scanning for threats.
No one is asking for performance.

Just ink and thought.

The studio is large enough to handle my art and my writing without compromise.

One side for words. A long desk beneath a wide window. Binders lined in order. Machines set up permanently. Nothing temporary. Writing is where vigilance becomes meaning.

The other side for art. Easel upright. Drop cloth stained with honest effort. Wide tables for sketching and scanning. Light that tells the truth. Art is where discipline becomes expression instead of defense.

High along the walls are multiple perches.

Wide shelves mounted intentionally. A beam near the ceiling. A sun-warmed window ledge. Guppy watches from above, tail flicking. She knocks a pen to the floor when I take myself too seriously. She sleeps deeply.

Sometimes I watch her and remember what that looks like.

In the back is the tinkering space.

A heavy workbench scarred from years of use. Tools hung in order. Machines opened up mid-repair. The smell of oil and sawdust. I take things apart there.

Sometimes machines.

Sometimes old reflexes.

This house is my Fortress of Solitude.

Not a bunker.

Not a hiding place.

A place where vigilance can sit instead of stand.

A place where silence is intentional.

A place where peace does not need to prove itself.

I have lived in chaos.

Now I choose calm.

Vigilance may never leave.

But in this house, it does not get the last word.