I was feeling a little low yesterday as I spent the day packing. (God, it's amazing how much stuff I am carting around, even while most of my possessions are in a rented storage space...) I am so so so tired of feeling ungrounded. I'm a bit of a homebody, and it's been almost two years of upheaval, of feeling split between multiple places. And since my breakup, with most of my things in storage, I've felt my lack of my own space very keenly. (As an only child, I confess to being a bit of a space hog.)
When I got here last night, all I could think about was how much my things mean to me, and how much I miss them. This is a huge, beautful house, and very homelike, as A pointed out. I'm grateful for that. But its hominess isn't my kind of hominess, sweet as it is. It's a pine-and-pottery, relentlessly cottagey aesthetic. It's not a way I'd ever choose to decorate - it feels like I've walked back in time thirty years. And I found that there had been less space cleared for me than I expected, so it's going to be hard to make it my own. It's an odd feeling - as if I'm just holding a place. All the kitchen cupboards crammed with their food, for instance. A quarter shelf for me here or there. It feels a bit like I'm squatting, and I was, truthfully, a little dismayed by it last night. Got a little depressed, too, thinking about how I have to pack up my stuff and move yet again by July 4 - and I'm not even sure where I'm going at that point, since I hadn't planned to leave until the very end of July. Most of my stuff will then go to the storage place, and I might actually be forced to move to Scary City almost a month earlier than planned, for simple lack of a place to be, in Home City. Ex-GF has offered, but I don't think that's a great idea. My mother would happily take me in, but I'd poke my eyeballs out living in that suburban hell again, and with our fraught relationship. Ugh. We'll see.
Anyway, enough whining. Soon enough, I'll have my own place again, to decorate and mess as I please. And to stay in for at least a couple of years, thank goodness. (Although I have a very happy life, I sometimes feel like its one curse is being forced to move over and over again - I've lived in about two dozen places in my 32 years. No more, please!!)
Ultimately, I am so so so happy to have this whole big house to spread out in, being the space hog that I am. I envision a few months full of lots of solid, focused work, lots of time outdoors (there's a lovely deck and backyard here, and also I will be running and walking the dog a lot), and lots of wine and food. I want to entertain people at the beautiful dining room table! I want to drink cocktails! I am planning a little trip to the liquor store today or tomorrow, to stock up on my supplies, including the requisite gin and tequila.
And I am working in my Supervisor's study, which I think will help make the "solid work" portion of the spring happen. She has cleared off the desks for me, and some bookshelves, so I've set it up to feel more like my space than any other room in the house. And I can't help but hope that some of her very efficient and brilliant working self - all distinguished and famous - will rub off on me, and I'll have a summer of productivity and...smartness, moving back and forth between the two desks in this calm, blue room, a skylight over my head:
5 comments:
That must be so unsettling! I find I'm less and less able to take that kind of dislocation. Here I am in a city I lived in for five years, where I used to feel so at home, but now I'm in a hotel far from my old neighborhood and feeling a little under the weather and the wind is HOWLING! I know it'll be better when we meet up tomorrow morning :)
Wow, here's how warped I am: what did I notice? There's GREEN out your window! GREEN!!!!!!! GREEN!
It's snowing outside here. There isn't much green. :(
(I'm sorry to hear moving's so hard; I sympathize.)
Oh, don't worry, Bardiac - that's just an evergreen tree. There's no green around these parts - I too am lamenting the freezing, freezing weather!
I like the study. It looks like a really cozy and productive office. And I feel your pain about moving. I once did 4 moves in 14 months. It's very unsettling, and I'm sorry you're feeling this way once again. But soon you'll be in your own place, and decorating your own place can be so much fun!
I hate being so unsettled, too. The thought of moving makes me almost break out in hives.
Wow, what a pretty pretty room, though! I love the color. At least while you're a bit upended, you'll be in a very pretty, peaceful place.
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