This weekend I laid in bed for a while just thinking. Yeah, total fucking shocker. I kept thinking about how some rooms only have one furniture layout available and how it is nearly impossible to imagine designing the room differently with any success. The thought kept going on, further and further as I tend to do. I closed my eyes and imagined my new bedroom. It is over 80 years old. I thought of all the people who have lived in this room, and all the furniture this room has seen. The particular placement likely being damn near the same with each passing occupant. This led me to think…at what point was this room the most happy? When did the floors and walls sigh relief and embrace what filled their space? I hope it is now with me, but I also hope it was then with everyone else too. This is where I ended up after this thought…is that not a lot like people and relationships?

We each have a pretty generic layout of what works for us, for our being, bodies, minds, needs, and wants. People try and move their “furniture” in. They try and fit the space and make it come to life. Sometimes they paint the walls, they close the blinds, lightbulbs get replaced, a new style is introduced, words are spoken, and if you are me, sage gets burned. But even with the best efforts, a space does not always feel right, the room and home do not always feel like it is yours. It does not feel like home. Home is so much more than a tangible effort. Home to me is pure love, and love you can take with you wherever you go. During a particularly hard morning on my “extremely selfish” solo trip, I updated everyone with a story discussing how home to me is my sons, it always will be. One of our first days in the new house, I ran to the grocery store and when I returned and walked in the house, Avery greeted me and smiled. He said, “It always feels so good when you are here, it feels like home.” 

Not everyone can be home, but I certainly hope that just like this room I sit in now, I have always been able to offer (if even for a brief moment) a sigh of relief and an opportunity for every person in my life to embrace me being in their metaphorical room. I hope that is what others wish for themselves in return. I see a lot of love being created in this sense, and with a lot of love, there is a lot of loss. Like the people who have resided in this house over the last 80+ years, when they each left, they made room for the next. The loss started a new chapter of love for the house by clearing out the space and giving someone else the keys. Someone with a new set of eyes to see the potential that perhaps has never been seen before. To bring a new energy into the space, new levels of laughter, new conversations, new and fresh appreciation.

I hope this house is happy with me. I hope it is happy with my furniture, my sons, my three boy dogs, my rock, leaf, stick, feather, and dead bug collections, and my constant checking in with its energy to ensure we are in sync. I hope it knows how much I appreciate its walls, roof, and history, and how it is here for me now and offers me peace, safety, and protection. I can hear it giggle when I walk down the hallway in the middle of the night whispering “love love” to two of its doors that are closed concealing the two beings that I call my forever home. I have a feeling this house knows I am fucking crazy, but it’s the one that opened its orange door to me and said, come in and be exactly who you are, and don’t leave an ounce of you outside.