Day #18: A House is Not a Home

My mom told me that she lost the house.

She told me today, but I knew this was coming.

It's been an ongoing fight ever since the one-two punch of my stepfather losing his job two years ago right when we needed a new septic system.

Financially, my mom and stepdad just never recovered from it.

Today, my mom told me that if I want to keep the piles of books and movies I have in the basement there, I'd have to find somewhere to put them since she's moving the remaining family into a smaller house.

She told me this at work, and I could tell she did that on purpose. My mom can force herself to remain strong when she's in public. She hates making any kind of a scene.

Still, I could tell it was killing her.

If I have two major Achilles heels, they would be the following:

1. I don't do well with change.
2. I'm incredibly sentimental.

Losing your childhood home attacks both those weaknesses at the same time.

It's, as you can imagine, a super feeling.

So I perspective checked the hell out of it.

Everyone's still healthy (knock wood).
We all still get along (knock wood).
Houses and books and movies are material possessions that I don't really need.

Still, I feel terrible.

I love that house. I love the memories I have there. I feel like lately everything I have is just a memory of something that was there. So many of my friends end up moving away to other, fancier places. So many places are just places people used to live. It was nice to have a long-standing relationship with a particular place.

I liked going home.

I'm sad I don't get to go home again.

And I wanted to get angry. And I wanted to get hard. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wanted to snap at people, and bite their heads off. I wanted to scream into the world "Why doesn't anyone DO anything about this?"

Instead, I Oprah-ed it up.

I told myself to feel the sadness. I told myself not to retreat into anger because it's an easier emotion to deal with.

I reminded myself that when you refuse to change, change will force itself upon you.

But, you know, it still sucks.

It really sucks.

Am I allowed to say that? Is it okay to just say "This sucks?"

I will say that I wasn't mean to anybody.

Even as I was hearing the news at work and two minutes later dealing with an irate mother who swore she brought her books back on time, I still smiled and suggested very politely that perhaps she didn't.

Granted, I may have been in denial.

...Yeah, probably denial, but nevertheless, I didn't eat her alive.

I realize now that it's almost 5am and I'm still up that the day was easier because it was a sad day and not a day filled with lashing out. Having to deal with losing the house and with who knows how many arguments and nasty comments and apologies for the next day would have just been too much.

So I'm glad I managed to stay nice today.

In spite of everything, I was the person I wanted to be today.

Just in the wrong situation.