I was on the phone with our friend Susan Popper yesterday to congratulate her. She just bought  house.

A very long and sometimes painful journey was drawing to a close.

She was on her way to a real estate closing. She was finally fulfilling a long time dream, she was moving to her new home right in the middle of Cambridge, the small jewel of a town where Maria and I live.

Susan sounded strange, her voice was muffled and choking, I asked her if she was okay, I said it sounded as if she were crying.

She was crying, she said, she was sobbing, in fact. Susan, like Maria, lives with her emotions very close to the surface. Like Maria, crying is often just another form of talking with her.

But her move to Cambridge from the Long Island town where she worked for decades as a lab technician supervisor at a local hospital was no simple or ordinary move.

It was transforming. It marked a long journey, really going back decades. A few years ago Maria and I met Susan at one of our Open Houses.

We became friends, but then she dropped out of sight. I heard vague reports of trouble, but we didn’t know one another well, and I had no idea that she was suffering from emotional and then physical  illness, much as I had.

When she surfaced a year or two later, I learned that she had nearly died, and that she had survived an awful and wrenching ordeal.

Susan was a wreck, her vary hard and abusive childhood had finally caught up with her.

She decided to change her life, to do the hard work of recovery. She visited us in Cambridge, and we both felt a closeness to her that is rare. I’ve written a lot about friendship but the truth is I never really know why some friendships work and some don’t.

Susan became a member of our family, we cheered her on, listened to her, shared our stories, felt a great trust and connection. In a sense, her journey was our journey, we  knew her, she knew us.

Susan made some very powerful decisions about her life.

She had decided to take  her life apart  and reassemble it.

She decided to move to the country, leave her job, sell her house, leave everything familiar behind and to began the arduous task of giving rebirth to herself at a time when most people are thinking of winding down their lives, it is called “downsizing.”

Susan decided, as she neared 60, to go the other way, to “upsize.” It seemed she was stronger than she new, and fiercely committed to live the life she wanted, rather than the life others had given her.

I have my own faith and my own prayers. Blessed are the brave who confront the suffering in their lives, who seek help and acknowledge their shortcomings, who face the hard truths about themselves, and  who undertake the frightening and transforming hero journey to give rebirth to themselves and begin anew.

Susan was living alone, she has  been divorced twice.  She had suffered greatly from deep wounds and self-denigration. She wanted to live in a different way.

She began intensive psychotherapy.

She answered the call of the creative spark. She started her own blog. She joined my Writing Workshop and began chronicling the rebuilding of her life. She went to her therapist faithfully and worked hard. She joined the Creative Group at Bedlam Farm and began posting her photographs and sharing her writing. Photography has become a central and deepening part of her life.

She moved closer and closer to the creative life. She underwent the many emotional and literal ups and downs of a new life. She never blinked.

Susan put her house up for sale and began looking for a house near Cambridge. She got a job at a local hospital as a lab and blood technician. After six months, she sold her house and bought a house up here. She drove thousands of miles back and forth in her search, in snowstorms, thunderstorms, broiling heat.

I am happy to say that it has all come together for Susan. She will not have a perfect life anymore than I will, but she is living her dreams and is thrilled and overcome with the new possibilities. We are fortunate to have witnessed this remarkable story.

It’s enough to make anybody cry.

Susan and I have become like brother and sister. We know each other in that way, tease each other in that way. yell at each other in that way, love each other in that way. I love her sense of humor and smarts and passion for creating things.

She and Maria have become close friends, perhaps like sisters.

Yesterday, this lovely house was finally hers, on a beautiful street. Maria and I went to bring her flowers and congratulate her and share the moment with her. She was still crying, but they were tears of joy and relief and achievement.

So many people want to change their lives. So few do. So many people talk of change. But so few change. So many people wish to give rebirth to their lives. but few do. So many people need help, but so few get help.

Change is hard, even harder when one is alone. It takes great will, faith, strength and courage. It takes encouragement and good friends.

Perhaps it is easier for those of us who fall so hard and so low, maybe when all is said and done, we have no choice.

Congratulations, Susan, in your new house and you new life. I understand why you were crying for much of the day yesterday. We are happy for you and proud of you.

You have come home.

You can follow Susan’s journey here on her blog the one with the lousy name..