This room is mine. We bought this house in October and I have not yet called it mine. But this room, with its light and view to the trees surrounding us, is mine. I don’t put much effort into cleaning it or organizing what it holds; I walk in and out, to sleep and pick out my clothes for the day. I always thought the wooden floor was too hard to walk on, too hard to feel, too cold to touch. But now that we are in May and the sun is out more often, the cold floor feels good to step on, to walk on in the morning after the sweltering sun has hit my face. The colors stand out, the red of my bed sheets against the cream of the floor and the walls and bookshelf.
But this room needs refreshing. It needs life, life that I am not giving. I barely stay here. I walk in and out. I spend half the day in the big room downstairs, or in the kitchen getting an apple, or making tea or a mid-afternoon coffee. And I forget about this room upstairs, forget what’s mine. The curtains and windows stay shut. And when I come back up to sleep, it’s hard to breathe.
How long does it take to accept and possess what is yours? How long does it take to move on?
Everybody else did. They came to this house with open arms, thrilled and excited as I stood aside and watched. The first day we moved into this house was the first day I saw it. And then I left three months later. They loved it from the beginning and watched its flowers bud in the spring, the snow melt and the yard become a big garden. They loved it from the beginning and called it the best thing that happened to them.
I am back now, after four months. And this room is mine.