Once I was a house.
With a picket fence in the front yard, a dreamy back porch with not one, but two, chandeliers and a massive kitchen island where my children and I would dance around for no official reason other than it seemed like a good idea. HGTV was my spirit animal. However, that was eight years ago before I embarked on the Great American Heartache Home Tour thanks to the Great American Recession.
Yet, I continued decorating as best I could, a fresh coat of paint for my apartment’s living room wall, a re-purposed desk in the rental house after the apartment, new brass doorknobs on the bathroom cabinets in the rental after that rental, then another batch of paint for the next rental’s dining room. If anyone could paint herself out of a corner, it would be me.
Or so I thought.
Then real stuff happened to my family and me. Life threatening. Sanity threatening. Suddenly, Sherwin Williams’ Revere Pewter faded into shallow oblivion because who cared that gray paint was a perfect complement to the hardwood floors I fell onto while praying to keep loved ones alive?
Once I was a decorating notebook.
While most 15-year-old girls were reading Seventeen magazine and listening to K.C. and the Sunshine Band, I was poring through house plans, tearing out my favorites and three-hole punching them into a notebook humbly titled “Amy’s Home Idea Book.”
Dad, a builder, gave me one of his spare drawing boards, which I propped on my bed sketching out my dream room. One drawing included an elaborate floor-to-ceiling bookcase dividing the bed from the door, a design that looked like I.M. Pei married Alice in Wonderland. Always encouraging, Dad gently pointed out I had blocked the door’s entryway with the bookshelves. Eventually, it became apparent that measurement skills were not my strong suit.
Still, I kept adding to my notebook. But, dreams have a way of being redefined, too, whether we like it or not. We are all renovated in some sense. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually. Financially. That last one was a doozy for me. Once I was a checkbook. Until I wasn’t. Another theme for another time.
I was never the brass doorknobs or semi-gloss paint or porch chandeliers. They were embellishments that gave a semblance of permanence in an impermanent world. This part I’ve always known. But, for the longest time, I would trip myself up over what I thought was necessary to be complete.
One night at dinner, a pseudo-acquaintance stopped by my table and asked me if I was still renting. I bristled at the “still” part wanting to listen to my inner pettiness and respond with the question, “Are you still nosy?” Instead, I started babbling on about why I rented. It’s so convenient! No hassle. Love where we are. Can’t find exactly the house we are looking for. Big decision if to build or buy.
Why didn’t I just simply answer, “Yes, I am.” Why the need to explain?
Looked like I had some serious interior design work to do on the ole’ insecure interior self.
Once I felt ruined, shamed by my circumstances, guilty I couldn’t fix them. I did, however, have a choice. I could either adapt or attack, flailing about the injustice of it all. That’s no fun, trust me. So, I re-purposed into something else that fits differently, better in most places. House or no house, I’m truly home when I’m with those whom I love.
