A Room of One's Own
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
We sat across from one another over a brunch of an omelet (him) and carne asada (me).
I wasn't sad, or upset. Merely reflective. But when he said, "I want you to feel like it's your home, too," I found giant silent tears sliding down my cheeks.
I knew he did. I knew that he was sincere. I had moved in somewhat suddenly after putting my condo on the market and receiving an initial flurry of activity surrounding the listing. We had originally decided to move the two dogs to his house across the isthmus in the spirit of keeping my place continually show-able. But after only a couple of days of having my dogs in one place and all of my things in another, I soon followed with everything except for my artwork, rugs, and furniture.
For those days, and many that would follow, I felt ill at ease. Like wearing a sweater that was too small. Like forgetting to do something important but not knowing what.
It wasn't lost on me that I would be the second woman to share that space. That I was using the closet his ex-girlfriend had called hers. That my toothbrush and perfume occupied the same shelves that hers had less than a couple of dozen of months before. That she had been on my side of the bed long before me. And it was unsettling. But it wasn't completely that.
And it wasn't the negotiation of space. Even when I tried to make that an issue ("Well, what are we going to do with all of these dishes?" "Where am I going to put any of my clothes?" "What about my TV/bedspread/wine glasses/insert any random household item here?") he was nonplussed. He boxed up his old dishes. Cleaned out a whole closet for me, and part of his. Reorganized the kitchen to accommodate the bags of dry goods. Didn't bat an eye when I reorganized his reorganization ("Oh!" he said one morning, finding the marshmallows in a different cabinet than he had put them away in the night before, "This is where they're supposed to go.") And did all of it with a content smile. Happy to be doing it. Happy I was there.
And yet. It was hard to shake the loss I felt. Even if I couldn't put my finger on exactly what I had lost.
I had lived on my own on and off for the past six years. After a brief stint living with an ex-boyfriend in New Jersey after graduate school, I packed up and headed to Madison for a job, barely knowing a soul. I found an apartment by myself, and then, a condo. With my mom's eye for design, penchant for finding a good deal, and elbow grease, I was soon living in a space that could only be described as me. As home.
It was there where I would wake up on Saturday mornings, Leonard the dog curled in next to me, and watch Book TV before rising for a morning run or to take myself out for coffee. It was there that I hosted a myriad of Grey's Anatomy nights with a group of people who I would soon count among my very best friends. It was there where I would stay up late into the night -- a bottle of wine beside me, Leonard curled on my feet, and my laptop perched on my legs -- working on finishing my novel or a keynote speech for work.
It was where I broke off a long, hard, six-year relationship -- first laying on my bed in the heat of summer in an unfinished bedroom, and then again, more than a year later, sitting at my kitchen table on a blustery October afternoon. And it was on the first couch I had ever purchased where I kissed Chief of Stuff for the first time. It was the place of my 30th birthday bash, the first actual cocktail party I had ever hosted, where I returned to after running my first marathon, and where my closest friends and family gathered, all of us exhausted from the day, after I completed -- what has, so far, been the best and most monumentous day of my life to date -- the Wisconsin Ironman this past fall.
It was the place -- of all the places I've ever lived -- where I felt most me.
Simply put, it was home.
And even though I wanted to -- even though I was looking forward to turning the page -- leaving that place had left a hole I didn't know how to fill.
I tried the Buddhist tact -- that sorrow in life is rooted in attachment to possessions. That I was being unnecessarily materialistic. And then, when that failed, when the feeling of off-ness just wouldn't dissipate, I painted.
On a whim one night on the way home from work, I decided that the spare room -- the room where my closet was, which was chalk-yellow and shocking in first morning light -- needed to change. In less than ten minutes, I picked out a deep beige, a roller, blue tape, and a pan, and headed home to at least make that room mine.
By midnight, fueled by a wine and the company of a good friend, I transformed that room into something more me. When CoS called from out-of-town to ask how my night had been, I told him it had been great. I had painted. I had claimed a bit of space. I had softened the edge of that unsettling feeling just a little.
And soon, I decorated for Christmas. Hung my ornaments on the tree alongside of his. Hung a picture he had given me in the living room. Placed my family portrait on the dresser in his -- our -- room. And that feeling softened more.
It's still there, that feeling. But it's lessening with each passing day. And I've decided, it's okay if it hangs on. If only to remind me what kind of steps I'm taking, how far I've come, where I'm going.
Because no one ever said that these sorts of things were easy. Exciting. Satisfying. Meaningful. But not easy. That is life. That is love. Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps, said it best: “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
So true. So very true.
Posted by Erin 7:44 AM
I. Love. Your. Blog.
KB
Peace be with you, e.
And, it will keep feeling more & more like your home after time.
S & I moved in to our house at the same time, but it was NEW in our relationship and he was buying the house... We've come a long way from that, however, I still have "my" room :-)
It's like you took the thoughts out of my head, yet said them so much more eloquently then I ever could! Not only did I leave behind a place I felt "at home", I left behind a whole family of friends (that I now feel strangely separated from) who had been such an integral part of my every day life for 3 years.
I loved this post. I can relate on many of those feelings. Even though my new apartment is "ours," I still miss having a place of my own sometimes.