I beat that demon years ago, and I don’t plan on going back there.
“Where should I start?” I say out loud as though the house will answer, voice echoing off the barren walls to force me from my spiraling thoughts.
Her energy is quiet, but I can feel it. The desire to be loved. To be allowed to shine.
Yes, I’ve decided my house is a girl.
Although given the renovation headache she presents, maybe she is a man?
My gut tugs me right, toward my bedroom, and I wander through to a space dappled in late-morning light breaking through the trees. Spots of warm yellow dance and trip along the floor at my feet, dust motes drifting through the shards of sunlight that split through the paneled windows.
I think I’m going to love it here once she’s restored. Once she’s more like me.
I think this house will become my therapy.
The most pivotal stage of reclaiming myself to date.
I set my phone on the windowsill, select a playlist with a steady upbeat tempo to keep me moving, and then dig a fresh trash bag out of the stack of cleaning supplies. The first hour passes quickly, the sun slowly withdrawing toward the window as it climbs higher in the sky. I clear out the bedroom, sweep what’s too small to pick up into a pile in the center of the floor, and then shift across the great room. The music is almost too quiet to hear since I left my phone behind, but it doesn’t really bother me as I retreat into my thoughts while peeling the loose strips of paper off the wall.
Another week has gone by as I find my feet at the council. Another week of watching my online income shrink due to my neglect. And another week of finding it hard to care when this break feels so right. I hustled so hard to get where I did, but was it ever going to be a lifelong career?
More so, if it wasn’t for the change to the laws, would I still feel the pressure to do it now that I’m back? My heart says yes, but my head tells me I still wouldn’t put out content at the volume I used to.
My life is changing, and I can’t find it in myself to be mad about that. I’ve needed this for a while: the excuse to slow my pace. To disconnect and find wonder in the small things again. I just denied the reality long enough that it started to take its toll on me.
Physically. Mentally.
I’m not ashamed of how I made my money. I don’t regret it. But I’m tired of the hustle, and standing here in the pale daylight as I methodically peel loose paper from the walls feelsright.Peaceful.
Calming.
There’s no pressure to check my numbers after I’m done. No mental gymnastics when a style of video doesn’t perform as it has in the past. No questioning how I look or fussing with my environment a dozen times before I hit record for the fourth time.
There’s just a house that’ll become a home and the unknown promise of a new path in life.
And that fills my chest with the kind of pressure that’s welcome. The pressure of a full heart.
Pressure that turns back to rock when I take a step back and remember where I am. What’s happened to put me here, now, in an incomplete house.
He said I’m a whore. But I’m so much more than that. I built something from nothing, and all without his support or encouragement.
And it cost me everything.
Clouds mask the sun when I cross the threshold to the bedroom and retrieve my phone, shadows building in the corners of the room. The temperature has dropped, but the cool breeze that trickles in through the open door and windows still feels nice against my skin. Device in my hand, I stare out the dusty panes at the garden that butts up against my neighbor’stimber paling fence. The cloud creates a strange blue haze over the light, which, mixed with the warmer tones breaking through, paints the flowers in a magical hue.
I envision a table. Maybe wrought iron with decorative elements. Maybe timber. But small and cute with the kind of chairs that you sink into, losing hours to a simple hobby as the afternoon goes by.
I imagine what it would have been like to sit there with Jinx, losing hours to conversation as we catch up on the years gone by.
He asked why I left, and I then asked him why he stayed, thinking at the time it was sad that he missed the chance to explore the world outside Temperance. But maybe he was right, and I was wrong? Perhaps living here—inthistown—wasn’t the issue?
Perhaps it was as basic as the house I was in.
My parents didn’t neglect me. I’m thankful for that. I always knew I was loved as a child. But what they did do was restrict me. Clip my wings and hold me close. Criticize and direct me.
And in return, I flew as far as I could once I finally broke free of their nest.
Folding to the floor, I settle against the wall beneath the windowsill and bend my legs before me. My battery is depleted from the music, but I’ve got enough left to make it maybe until I get back to Mom and Dad’s, as well as satisfy my curiosity now. I pull up the Google app, punch in keywords for the question that’s burned in the back of my mind since seeing Mrs. Tallomore at church, and wait for the results.
