01 August 08 - 07:07
An Emotional Business
Buying a house is emotional business. I hadn't realized how deep the emotions went until I did it. I thought that it was simply stress that came from spending more money than I ever had in my entire life, and having to make a lot of decisions about that money in a really short time. But I've discovered that was really only a part of it.
I have always known that moving was emotional, because it brings me face to face with all the things I'm managing to ignore the rest of the time, like the dust bunnies behind the bookcases, or the stuff I should really throw away but can't bear to part with, or the assorted bits of housework that I'm leaving be so I can get just one more hour of sewing on this project or that. When I move, I come face to face with my anger because I'm domestically challenged, because I live in a society that judges women by the cleanliness of their homes, because my muscles balk at moving a heavy piece of furniture or cardboard box. But this was beyond anger. It wasn't until we'd moved and I found myself alternately nagging, shouting at, and begging my children to help me unbox the house, nearly in a panic with my need to make them help me, that I started to get a glimpse of what was really going on in my head.
You see. my oldest daughter is twelve. When my mother and father bought their first home, I was twelve. My mother was pregnant with my second brother, and two years later bore a third brother. In very short order, they had two teenagers, two toddlers, and two careers in the household. Can you say "Stress," boys and girls? As the only girl, much of the suddenly increased burden of housework and child care fell on me, just as I was entering my fragile teen years, and I fought that change bitterly. Shortly thereafter, I went to a new school where for two years I was bullied and ostracized by my classmates. In retrospect, I know that the family was under pressure from all sides, and the changes in my life were nowhere near the only changes that were happening around me. But from the self-absorbed perspective of a junior high teen, I felt like the only person in the world who had ever endured such trials.
Back in the present, I sat in my beautiful house, boxes all around me, and realized that I was having flashbacks to some of the worst days of my adolescence. I sat back on my heels and used my head instead of my gut. The coincidence that my oldest daughter and I were both twelve when we moved into the first house our families owned is just that, a coincidence. It is not destiny. That was over thirty years ago. I am not my parents, and my daughter is not me. We will make our own path.
It really brought home to me yet again how much of our emotional world is set by our earliest experiences, below the level of words or reason. It's very hard to change those expectations and patterns because they are not rational, or most of the time even accessible to our conscious mind. And yet, those are the emotions that drive us, day after day, year after year, to repeat the patterns of our childhood, because they are comfortingly familiar even if they're not particularly functional. Sometimes, if I'm very alert, I can catch a glimpse of those old patterns moving family and friends, or the people that I work with in the church. Most often, the most helpful question I can ask at that point is, "Why are you doing that?" More often than not, if the person is thoughtful, they sit back on their heels and say, "I don't know." If they can figure it out, they will find that they too have a choice about how to react to the situation that's happening now, instead of to a situation long in their past. And by that learning, we grow.
And the old patterns aren't all bad. My teenaged self withdrew from her peers, hid out from her family, and found solace in an old manual typewriter that she found in her grandparents' basement. She taught herself to type, and started writing stories. Most of those stories weren't that great, but it didn't matter. She had found her calling. And even though I don't have time to write too much fiction these days, it's probably fair to say that the genesis of this blog was in the basement of my parents' house, writing lonely hours into marvellous worlds that I made up out of my own head. If you've wondered how I can express myself so well, that's the answer. Thousands of hours of practice. Perhaps, as we settle into this new house, I can move back to a place where I can carve out some time to write fiction again.
The path of self-discovery is still a long path. Last week, I set up my sewing studio in the downstairs rec room, only to discover that the kids can't hear the TV over my sewing machine. I burst into tears, and I didn't know why, but now I'm sure from the intensity of the reaction that I must have been told more than once that my typewriter was too loud. And now my sanctum was being invaded by a bunch of kids who, of course, have just as much right to use that room as I do, but my inner child wasn't totally with that program. Okay, deep breath. I have a choice about what to do next. I could invoke the age-and-homeowner-status-has-priority card. Or we could negotiate time slots. We don't have cable yet, so they don't spend that much time in the TV room. Or there's room for the sewing studio in the furnace room, or rather there will be when we move some more boxes around. I'll decide, and whatever I decide will be all right.
Blessings, Heather.
two comments
Hi Heather: Don’t be quite so hard on yourself – everything will find its place given time. Each of you has to find a comfort spot inside the house – it may take a little while for you and the sewing machine to settle in “just the right spot”!
I am interested in the idea that you might write some fiction. I can see a wonderful seriesw of stories being developed for the Children’s Time during the Worship Service. The children would identify so very quickly with a person, an object, a mascot, etc. who would be a central character leading them through the corners of a story – only to find out it will be continued nest week!! Subject matter could be whatever you wanted but it could include Christian morals, beliefs, behaviours, etc. as part of the structure. Brenda
Brenda McAskill - 03 08 08 - 19:51
Sounds like you hit a wall of expectations – of women, of young girls, of family, of society. All at once. It’s a tough tangle to unpick. You’re brave to be unpicking it, and in public at that!
As a long-time housing renter, I’m comforted sometimes by knowing that Jesus spent most of his active ministry staying over on his friends’ couches, and having dinner with friends. 
That’s a model I can follow!
Elizabeth in the UK - 08 08 08 - 15:20
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