Monday

I'm back online and putting my life, or at least my house, back together again.  It seems like my house is part of who I am so I am feeling like this is as much my life as it is just the place I live.   A few things seem obvious now.

I was crazy to decide to switch the sewing room and master bedroom at the same time as I am putting in new floors and redoing the two bedrooms at the other end of the house.  It was twice as much work, or more like three times as much work.  Now pretty much everything we own is piled up in the living room, dining room, and family rooms and it is not a pretty sight.  

At the same time, I still feel that even though every muscle in my body aches, that this was the best time to do all of this because there are no distractions and no one's life except my own is upended by all the chaos.  G has a limited tolerance for chaos, although a higher tolerance than I for everyday mess, so it is good that he is not here.  And given past experience, I also know that if I didn't do it now it would never get done.  I felt suffocated under the weight of too many things left  undone, and this overwhelming urge to do and finish has been very therapeutic. If I was having trouble sleeping when G first went to the hospital and rehab, I am not having that problem now.  I fall into bed exhausted and I awake eager to face another day.

I have too much stuff and some of it has to go, including books, fabric, and yarn.  I believe in having a stash, and in having materials at hand to foment creativity.  But there is too much.  G was not the only one clinging to the past.  And as I have a renewed appreciation for the tenuousness of life, I also realize that I don't want to be faced with having to move this much stuff ever again, that stuff is a burden, and much of it needs to be let go.  Neither G nor I are minimalists, we both tend to collect things we love or that inspire us, and there will always be a wealth of things in our lives.  This too is part of who we are.  We both bristle at being told that we should save less (don't even bother telling me what I don't need) but we have both also realized that we need less. Balance must be found.   I will still be sorting through my things when G returns at the end of the week; we will tackle his closet and his collections together when he returns. 

Oddly, in the midst of all this chaos I am strangely happy and happy with my home, happier than I have been in a long time.  I am eager for G to come home and I hope he likes the changes I have made, but I won't be devastated if he doesn't.  I have done what I had to do to make the house easier for him, and also what I had to do to make the house better for me, and I had put that later part, the "better for me" part aside for far too long.  This house was his long before I was added to the mix and although it has become more ours over the years, it was never a place we created together, a place without its own history, a history more his than mine, and often a reminder of failed expectations and dreams lost.  I admit that I have banished much of the furnishings that dated from that time before me, that harkened back to life with that first family, and that the new furnishings reflect my taste, although I have tried to keep his preferences in mind at every step along the path.  Perhaps it is about time.

I realize that I may not be in this house forever and yet now I am happy here again and could happily stay here for a long time.  This space, that felt like a prison not all that long ago, now feels filled with promise and I hope it will continue to feel this way.  I hope that G's homecoming will be filled with promise as well, that the changes I have made are good, and that he will see the hope and love behind the changes, not just the loss.  And when it becomes time to go, and this will happen because the world is a tenuous place, it will be sad and but also easier because of all the work I have already done.  I realize that we were both trapped by changes that were happening faster than we could adapt to them, and trapped by the weight of memory and expectation.  The weight of our collective past was tying us down both spiritually and physically.    I hope that we are coming to a place where some of that burden has been lifted, and we can shake out the remaining cobwebs and just enjoy what live has to offer.