My House is Morphing Again

Author’s Note: Before there can be a happily blended family, there is unimaginable pain and the death of dream. I love my funny, quirky blended life today, but it was not always the peaceful life we have now. There were dark years. This piece is a look back at part of the process of leaving my home and my marriage. I first wrote this in 2001, and I’ve reworked it over the years. This blog entry falls into the Transition portion of the overall work.

My House is Morphing Again

I pulled in the driveway after work, and the change was unmistakable. My house was morphing again. Every so often my house changes like this. Sometimes it happens with the seasons. In winter, the house takes on a cozy look. The warm, yellow light spilling out through the living room blinds always makes me want to be inside. In the summer, the house looks like a fortress of coolness. I know that if I can just manage all the bags from the grocery store in one trip, I can stay inside the cool air and relax.

But this time the house seems to be shrinking. Not in size, but away from me. It knows I am leaving, and the house has begun to pull away in anticipation, a little bit like that second before you pull off a Band-Aid. You shrink back because you know it will hurt.

When I got home, the house didn’t beckon me to work in its garden. It sat silent, and the weeds in my mulch smiled. And when I got inside, I was enveloped by coolness, but it felt like a snub.

The rooms I walk through are suddenly not the same. After five years in this neighborhood, my house has begun to act as if it doesn’t know me. The kitchen has become cold. It has never been the heart and soul of the house, as many kitchens are. Now I look at the dishes and think, “Who gave us that?” I try to remember so I can decide whether it’s appropriate if I take it with me. The saltshakers—from Bob’s great aunt. The bowl—from my Grandma West. The glasses—from Target, and therefore, up for grabs.

The living room, once a place for relaxed Sunday football games and naps on the couch, now looks like a staging area for my possessions. But the flame-stitch sofa and loveseat I picked out have to stay. They are only things, but I will miss them. No one gathers in the living room now anyway. Morgan watches TV there, but there are no long talks. No one admiring my classic Hollywood collectible plates. No one sinking into the couch with a cup of hot coffee saying, “How was your week?”

The dining room is more of an office. Regrettably, the cat has peed in there, perhaps in scorn of the meals that are never served. I will miss the Amish dining table with the beautiful oak claw feet. The dining room doesn’t hold anything but paper, bills, unread magazines and my daughter’s books and puzzles.

I walk upstairs, and there are shoes and insurance forms on the steps, waiting to be put away. They sit like good intentions never realized. But almost all things are in stasis now. The house is in transition, and so am I.

The master bedroom is at the end of the hall. It is full of dust, unread books, and the most gorgeous raspberry-colored carpet. In a perverse ironic twist, I once attended a viewing and noticed that the floral border in the funeral home was the same as in our room. I am not sure whether to compliment the funeral home’s decorating savvy or jump right off the roof. It’s a toss up. Against the far wall the bed waits silently. It is roomier now that my husband has been staying with friends. And while the extra room is a relief, it is also is a reminder that something has gone terribly wrong. Now that the house is morphing, the bed seems to be spewing me out like Jonah from the whale. It will not be my bed in only two weeks. It will be his bed again. This is not how I planned it. This is not what I’d hoped for. But here it is, and I must go forward. I do not trust myself to move back. I cannot. I will not.

The study across the hall has become a foreign land as well. It houses my computer where I sit and type e-mail, my connection to a world still spinning. Nearly a thousand books line the walls, but they are not my books. They were not my choice. The computer that should be my greatest tool for my work, my writing, is used to order sweaters and self-help books about how to make my life better.

My daughter’s room is next to the study. Before we got pregnant with Morgan, it was my own personal library. I loved it. Today it is a soft chick yellow. It has changed since my daughter’s birth three years ago, but some baby trimmings have stayed the same. The bears and bunnies border is still adorable, but too young for an almost-3-year-old. The oak sleigh crib has been replaced by a blue Little Tikes race car bed. Big-girl dresses hang from the still-broken closet door. For me, the room took on a life of its own. It was the altar of my redemption. Here will sleep the child who will always know she is loved. Here will lay the soft head of my hopes as I try to erase my own remembrances of youth. The edges of memory will soften as I love my daughter to womanhood. Now I will put her to bed in my own apartment. What will that be like?

No matter what window I look out, I see decay. My yard, my crabgrass, my driveway with the sinkhole in it. It is all changing now. The pond I dug with a friend, the dry streambed where water once flowed from a waterfall. It is becoming overgrown, and the mulch is dotted with weeds. No fish are alive in the pond anymore.

I am leaving it all. At first I didn’t want to leave the house and all my neighbors, but now a quiet sense of acceptance and a not-so-quiet anticipation has covered me. At the very least, things will be different.

It occurs to me that perhaps the house hasn’t decided to change again. Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps my eyes are a new shade of green. Perhaps I have reached down, way, way down, and found hope for happiness and peace. Elusive peace. Perhaps the energy of a dying man who has hope of heaven has crept into my tired bones and I have changed again. The house is becoming more distant. I do not look at it now and think whether we’ll have the money for that addition. That addition will never be built, like the rest of our lives together. It was a sincere promise, but even sincere promises are made with a certain expectation. Promises are like that.

►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►

I sit at a massive computer desk and type this. Only tonight I have chosen its replacement. Like my marriage, the computer desk is too heavy to take with me. The chair, on wheels, will go with me.

Already in my mind the house is becoming Daddy’s house, and already I wonder if the neighbors will be home on moving day. Will they come to see me? Will they think kindly of me? Will they remember the coffee and Christmas cards on their front porches as coming from me? Or will they only see a woman who does not forgive?

And as I leave the house as its occupant for the last time, I wonder if the house will forgive me. Will it remember my attempts at making it whole? Or will it only remember my back as I walk away? It has been a good house. Bob and I bought it from friends. But like many other things in my past, I must leave it behind me.

I am moving to an apartment. Something assumed to be temporary. Something not meant forever. I am not so sure I believe in forever anyway. But at least for a while, the apartment is mine, and within its walls, I will find rest. I will carve a new path from the jungle of others’ expectations, and I will breathe deeply. Fresh unfamiliar air with the faint scent of hope.