A Room of One's Own

Let me preface this by admitting that I have not yet read this seminal text by Virginia Woolf. I was introduced to the concept 30 years ago through the lyrics of an Indigo Girls song and have held the idea in my heart.

A room of one's own.

Growing up as the only girl in a family with two brothers, I had my own room. But it wasn't a room of my own. It was in my father's house, and there were rules about what could be put on the walls (nothing) what color it could be (white) and what furniture it contained. A quick internet search revealed the exact suite that was deemed appropriate for me.

Needless to say, the charm of this set wore off after age 10. It wasn't really my room. It was the room for the person my father envisioned his daughter to be.

I bought my first house with my fiance when I was 22. It was a 1970's ranch with carpet in shades of green, blue, and red. Formal drapes in the living room. A house clearly left behind by an older person or couple when they moved into assisted living. 

To me, it was a blank canvas.

It was my own home to create with my future husband. 

So it wasn't truly my own. Compromises had to be made on the bedding we chose for our wedding registry. I had to accept hand-me-down living room furniture from some of his coworkers who had a very different style than my own.

That was the first of five houses we owned together. Each one chosen for the price point and suitability for our family with minor consideration given to location. Style of the house was not important; everything was driven by practicality for a couple with 3 young children living on a single income.

The last house we co-owned was the only one I felt a connection to. I used to think it was because of the quirks and charms of its age and style. Later, I came to realize that it was the closest to being mine of any house I'd ever lived in. My now ex-husband got a job out of state and never moved into it. I lived there alone with my children for 4 months before we moved to join him. I maintained it as a rental property in our absence. I returned to it, without him, to finish the renovations when our tenants moved out. The design choices were almost entirely my own. The blood, sweat, and tears that went into its renovation were mine. He moved back to the house 11 months after I returned, and I made the decision to separate less than a year later.

I started this blog to chronicle the work I did on this house, and record my thoughts along the way. As I read back over it nearly 8 years later, it has been a journal of my own renovation. I have stripped off layers of other peoples' design choices that did not suit me. I found my solid bones and began rebuilding myself. 

I am building a room of my own.

stickers

 As a child in the 80's, stickers were EVERYTHING. Be they puffy, shiny, scratch & sniff, or just a favorite cartoon character, stickers were something to cherish and perhaps trade, and were often displayed in a sticker album.

The problem with most sticker albums was object permanence: once you removed the paper backing and adhered the sticker to the page, it was there forever. I remember one sticker that was so precious to me that I refused to put it in an album. It was a silver castle, in raised metallic glory, on a turquoise background. I probably still had that sticker somewhere in my desk well past my college years because I was to afraid to stick it on anything.

Today, stickers are still popular decorations for water bottles and laptops, and I have a few stickers displayed on these items. But I have an envelope with dozens of preciou
s stickers waiting for the perfect, permanent place to be displayed. Some of them have been in hiding for more than 8 years. These are lovely reminders of places I've been, and things I enjoy but I'm afraid to I'm afraid to waste them, so I keep them tucked away.

The cover of my laptop broke a few years ago and my thoughtful partner ordered and installed the replacement himself, but in doing so two things happened:

• I lost the three beloved stickers that were on the old cover
• The new screen was slightly cracked due to installation errors, but was still very usable. 

He felt bad about the cracked screen and offered repeatedly to replace it although I insisted it was not necessary. Part of my replacement reticence was due to the potential loss of even more stickers, and even though I didn't plan to have the computer repaired, I STILL didn't put any stickers on the cover for almost two years.

Until today.

Today, I pulled out the slumbering stickers and sorted them by category (schools, places I've visited, brands, Scouts, etc.) and then selected a few that had similar enough color schemes to be aesthetically pleasing to my eye, and put them on the cover. Some of the others I threw away because I don't want them anymore. Some of them I need to toss but I'm not ready to yet. And that's okay. They're stickers. They're not forever. They are meant to be enjoyed, not tucked away. There is no perfect place, or perfect arrangement. There is only now. Stick the stickers and enjoy them.

Coming back to life

Five years have passed since I moved back to North Carolina. 

There is no way to chronicle everything that has occurred since my last post in April 2019.

So I will start where I am. 

Yoga classes end with savasana- literally translated from Sanskrit as "corpse pose." So much of who I thought I was died in the last five years. I initially wanted to say that it was an unhealthy, cancerous part of me that needed to be cut out, but that is not true. 

I was never unhealthy. I was in denial that there was a parasitic vine wrapped around me like Japanese honeysuckle on a tree. Sometimes it appears lovely and fragrant, but all the while it is prevents the absorbtion of nutrients which leads to suffocation and death of the host. I was so tightly wrapped that I forgot what it felt like to be unencumbered. I had carried the weight for so long that I didn't even feel it.

Removal of a parasitic vine and restoring the host to health is difficult. You cut the visible vines off, but it takes time for the tree to feel the sun and ramp up photosynthesis so it can thrive. All the while, the roots of the vine can linger under the surface, reemerging and sending tendrils up the base when you're not paying attention. They, too, can come back to life.

At the end of savasana, you transition to a fetal position- parsva garbhasana. Many of my favorite instructors use this time to remind yogis that the end of each yoga practice is a chance to begin again. It is a figurative coming back to life.

My last blog post had me entering 2019 with the idea of living my best life. I begin 2024 with the continued exploration of what it means to come back to life.

So, as it turns out,

I don't hate Louisiana.

It took moving away and being gone for 3 months to understand that it's not the state or even the location within the state that made me so unhappy for the last 3 years.

I arrived back at my old house in Friday night after a 16 hour journey which was tedious but went quickly thanks to the book I was listening to: 9 Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty. It was the perfectly light and indulgent story to distract me during the drive.

Let's be clear about a few important points:

• I still dislike this house. I dislike even more that it is on the market but is soooooo far from my standards of being market ready. I'm trying my best to let go and let my husband handle selling it because it is "his" house but OMG I may actually go crazy before the week is over. I did not drive all this way to spend my precious time off to clean up and pack up a house when I have my own house in NC that needs so much attention, but... here I am. Sigh.
• It still feels isolated. Shreveport/Bossier is a decent metro area, but beyond this you have to drive 3 hours toward Dallas to find anything new/different. The other towns within that radius are the same size or smaller and offer little in the way of entertainment options.

With those disclaimers out of the way, here are a few things that I actually miss about this place:

• Birds. I forgot how many types of birds visit my yard here (even though the bird feeder is MIA). It has been a delight to watch and listen to them as I enjoy my morning coffee.
• Wind. I have no idea what meteorological phenomenon is at work, but this corner of the world always has the nicest breezes, which sometimes turn into downright blustery days. I adore wind, perhaps because I grew up in the breezy bay area of California. Breezes like this are not common in the piedmont of North Carolina. In fact, compared to the atmosphere here, the air there is downright stagnant.
• My people. I did a pretty good job of keeping myself walled off for the first half of the year when I moved here. I didn't want to form a lot of relationships because I knew this was not my home and I would not be staying. But dammit if I didn't meet some of the best friends I've ever had. I frontloaded my visit by seeing a lot of them on Saturday and I must admit that I found myself wondering if I wouldn't have been better off staying here, among them.

No time for second-guessing- I made my choice and did what I thought was best by moving back to work on my house. 

Still, I am secretly glad to be leaving 2 college students behind in this area so I'll have a reason to keep coming back for a few years.

Learn to sit

Tonight I went to a yoga class for the first time in almost 2 months. I have been so busy with school, my house, and scouts that I haven't carved out time for self-care, and it's starting to show.

It was a deep stretch where we settled into poses and held them for 3-4 minutes, which can seem like 3-4 hours when your body is contorted into unnatural positions. To be honest I'm not a huge fan of this particular yoga studio, but it's close to my house and has $10 community classes on Sundays. It's been very crowded both times I've been, with 35+ people squeezed in like sardines and most of them were very noisy/chatty prior to the class beginning. Factor that into my physically out-of-practice self; it makes for a place that I was not able to fully relax and focus.

As we were settled into one of our poses, the instructor reminded us that we need to work through our distraction and fidgety natures and learn to sit with what is uncomfortable.

I reflected on several people I know who are sitting with what is uncomfortable this week. A friend whose parents are downsizing the family home to move into a retirement village. Another friend grappling with broken relationships with teenage children. Dear young friends of mine who gave birth to their first child who died an hour later. This is heavy stuff. My woes of a strenuous workload and time-sensitive house projects pale in comparison.

Yet, it is all discomfort to varying degrees. We cannot escape it. We can attempt to dull the pain chemically, we can seek comfort in religion, and we can reach out to friends and therapists. But ultimately, we have to sit with it and be still until the pain passes. Because this, too, will pass.

Living My Best Li(f)e

I was thinking about a year-end summary the other day, and wanted to make it about the phrase "Living My Best Life." I jotted down a note on my iPhone to remind myself about this idea, and somehow never made contact with the "f" on the keyboard.

Living My Best Lie

This couldn't be more appropriate.

During my 2018 journey through self-discovery, I uncovered the fact that I have been unconsciously living a lie. Like, for a long time.

A new-ish friend asked me what I was like in high school, and I thought back to my whimsical, insouciant, independent, determined teenage self. It's been a while since I've seen her for more than a few hours at a time.

Then,

I serendipitously got a job at summer camp this year and felt more alive than I have in years.

I tried teaching in a public school classroom again after nearly 20 years, and felt so constrained and ineffective despite the fact that I love (and am good at) teaching.

And as I processed all of this, I realized I have lost contact with the real me. This move to Louisiana (2.5 years now, y'all) has been so hard, but without it I don't think I would have come to understand these things about myself.

• I would have kept on living the life I had been for the past 20-odd years, doing the things I felt were expected of me. Things that were "appropriate." 
• I would have kept being (surface) friends with the same people who had comprised my circle as a young wife and mother.
• I would have participated in the same groups and activities out of obligation, not out of desire or enthusiasm.
• I would have continued to do small, fun things (and often feel guilty about it) because I was afraid to do bigger, bolder fun things.

I know this, because I felt myself wanting to change before I moved here, but I didn't know how to break free and be authentic to myself.

The past 5 months of intentional unemployment have been a liberating time to realign my internal compass. I traveled to Maui to visit my brother. I resumed working on my beloved blue house in Gibsonville, logging thousands of miles on my car, thousands of dollars to my bank account, and thousands of hours to be alone and think. I read a lot, crafted a lot, dreamed a lot. 

I can't say exactly what my best life is going to look like; it's something I'm discovering each day. 

Welcome, 2019.

Welcome, my best life.

if it's meant to be, part 3

The Trading Post. I was assigned to work in the Trading Post.

Perks: unfettered access to popcorn, slushies, cookies & soda. Moderate air conditioning in some places. Private bathroom. Occasional trips to town to pick up merchandise.

Disadvantages: Neurotically counting money and inventory on a daily basis. Not a program area.


I never would have chosen to work at the Trading Post (despite the excellent perks), but I had the best summer. My initial contract was for 3 weeks, but I ended up coming back for another week at the end of the summer because I was having so much fun (and apparently I had convinced the director that I was doing useful things).

Camp is my happy place. It is the place that I feel most like myself. If I could live at camp all year long, I would. And the people that work at camp are my kind of people. I freaking love camp.

The Trading Post director quickly became the best friend I never knew I was missing in my life. Midway through our first week of working together, he pointed out that I wasn't supposed to be there. If things had gone the way I thought they would, I would have been at Philmont and would have been at camp for only an hour or two to drop off and pick up my son.

What is meant to be, anyway? Was I actually supposed to go to Philmont? Or was I supposed to work at camp, all along?  Would I have had an amazing time at Philmont, or would I have been miserable? Would I have been assigned to work at the Trading Post if I had been hired back in December?

I have no doubt that I was meant to be at camp this summer. I don't know if I will make it to Philmont in the future, or if I will work at camp again. But my heart is overwhelmed with gratitude for the serendipity that landed me exactly where I needed to be for the summer of 2018.