Shared space
I just read another book about a group of people who become found family. This resonates. I realized while crying over yet another uniting of people by choice, that I want this. I have an eternal marriage, but he’s not here right now. I have children, all of them working through what they want in life, exploring what’s out there. I… don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to date. I don’t want to move house. I want… something. Someone.
My children need to progress, including living alone or with roommates; they need the experience of setting up and running their own homes, deciding what they will keep and where they will put it. They don’t necessarily want me in their homes. I’m not terrible to live with, I hope, but they want control of their own spaces and I want control of my own space.
Many years ago now my sister and her husband took my parents into their home. They got along pretty well. My sister’s children were all out of the house. My parents did what they could to make life easier; they tried to remain cheerful and do what they could to keep the house running. My mother cleaned; my father gardened. They had a bedroom to themselves and two desks in the living room for their computers. The house was my sister’s; her decor, her arrangements, with modifications for my parents’ comfort. They ate mostly what my sister chose, willingly chopping and stirring, washing up afterwards.
More than that; my parents ditched 90 percent of their belongings in making that move. All but a few of my mother’s books, all their kitchen stuff and furniture, most of their mementos. Family pictures got transferred to albums or given to children, except the few that fit in their new space.
Can I make that big a change? My space is currently filled with food storage and homeschooling supplies. Not homeschooling curriculum, but books, lots and lots of books, board games, craft supplies, costume pieces, a trail bike, my piano, pencils, pens, paper, my mementos—boxes and boxes of things I’ve saved, intending to write about them.
I won’t need all four bedrooms once my children have moved out. I’m slowly getting rid of stuff I’m not using. It’s a slow process. But now I have something to aim for: reducing my own belongings to what I actually need, to make room for whatever is coming.
