I am sitting on the narrow linoleum floor of my new kitchen with my back against the refrigerator door, mainly because the only outlet for three-pronged plugs to be found in the vicinity is about two feet away. Half-unpacked cardboard boxes surround me and the kitchen sink is full of dirty dishes that I really need to wash tonight. Maybe we'll try out the new portable dishwasher?
The house is deeply quiet, now that I've managed to calm my sugared out children (thanks, Valentine's Day!) and get them to bed. My husband is out at a coffee shop working on computer code, and for the first time since about midnight I am enjoying complete and utter peace.
Looking around this amazingly scuffed, worse-for-the-wear home we've just moved into I do notice all of the rips in the screens, the stains under the kitchen cabinets (I wonder how many years those have been there!) and the jiggly sound the refrigerator motor makes when it turns off.
Oddly as it sounds, I LOVE IT. I love all of it. I love every ripped plastic blind, every scratched bit of paint. Every single thing that makes this home old and a bit scroungy. This house feels lived in. It feels warm and comforting. It feels alive and friendly. Most of all, the entire house feels like your favorite threadbare bathrobe that was once fuzzy and is now merely soft and rich with the fresh scent of laundry soap.
I never would have believed that it would be possible to live in a home that was TOO nice, TOO fancy, TOO large. My husband and I aren't very materialistic but we have always sort of shared the notion that a large lovely home connotes prosperity and happiness. For whatever reason though, we were never really that happy in the gorgeous massive house we've just left.
There was a lot of sorrow and stress in that house, we grappled with a lot of grief there. We never had enough money to furnish it in a style that befitted its elegance, and I could almost HEAR the pristine walls and stained glass cabinets griping over our stained mismatched furniture - just like the fancy train in "The Little Engine That Could" who refused to pull the good little engine and her cargo over the mountain because they weren't important enough. "I, house the likes of YOU? I think not!"
What a profound lesson then, to discover over the course of almost 21 months that bigger is *not* always better... and perfect is perhaps hard to live with on a day to day basis. It gets overwhelming to feel like you have to act like someone you aren't (in my case, someone neat and tidy!) in order to live up to the house you live in.
Typing these words I am reminded of the difference between myself as a teenager dating versus myself now as a 35 year old mother and wife. At age 16 I tried so hard to be the 'ideal' girlfriend, whatever I thought that was. I wanted to be the smartest, prettiest, sexiest, most affectionate girlfriend and couldn't get my head around the notion that being with someone who was trying that hard to be perfect all of the time might quickly grow exhausting... or at the minimum, it might be uncomfortable or annoying.
Nearly twenty years later, I have to laugh at the notion of ME being the best at anything. I feel lucky on a daily basis if my mom clothes manage to match and I'm actually wearing skinny jeans rather than maternity pants (nearly two years postpartum). I still haven't learned how to apply makeup and if my husband is really lucky I might throw on a coat of mascara and some lip gloss before we go out on the town.
I feel like a failure about 90% of the time as a parent, but I figure that if I can just keep my chin up and continue showing up in the morning with a positive attitude, I'll never be a total failure. I have no idea what I want from a career, which makes one wonder why I invested almost 30 years in studying and taking classes. I've had a lot of trouble keeping the house clean since having three children, despite the fact that I spend multiple hours cleaning each day. Even my health has taken a huge hit in the last few years, although I'm on the road back from that.
Like my new house then, I am a total, glorious mess. Yet I don't think it is a coincidence that I have a darling husband who manages to love me despite the fact that he has watched two children entering the world through the graphic and bloody process of birth, and a third sliced right out of my womb to the point where he could see my organs working within my flesh. Ironically, the more of a mess I have become the more he has loved me. Perhaps like our new house I am more comfortable to live with on a day-to-day basis without the hard edge of perfection hanging around my countenance.
The list of things that are wrong with this new house is lengthy and yet, I just don't care. BB gun pellet hole in the dining room window? Okay, we'll deal with it. Back fence rotting? Fine, no problem. Cast iron pipes that won't work with a garbage disposal? That's alright, I'll scrape the plates more carefully before I rinse them. There are probably fifty things wrong with this house already and yet I love it more after two days than I've loved any house in three years.
It probably sounds crazy but I feel like this home gives me permission to let my hair down and just be myself.
Now that the bulk of the moving is over and we're down to unpacking scores of boxes, my husband is falling in love with the community and house as well. Last night we spent a few exhausted moments cuddling on the couch and he confided with a smile in his voice, "It's a great place, hon. We're going to be happy here."
This evening I returned with another load of boxes from the old house and discovered that he had planted me some yellow Gerbera daisies in the fertile soil next to our new back yard gate along with a note staked to their side that read: Welcome Home.
I took it all in ~ the chaotic, happy sounds of my children playing, the vast stretch of land extending behind me into the night, and the smallish slightly shabby house illuminating our garden with radiance tumbling from its brightly lit windows. Inhaling the beautiful, chilly night air I thought to myself happily, "That sign could also read, 'Welcome Back To YOU'".
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