In the re-beginning, there were the heavens and the earth that had always been there and then there was the me that was becoming.
We are slowly moving into the house. Bit by back-breaking bit. Endless hours of throwing things into bags and boxes, cleaning, scrubbing, discovering, and promising ourselves that we will finally cut some of the things loose that we have moved.
The house is cavernous, yet cozy, and you will wear yourself completely out if you have to walk from the owner’s suit to the other end of the house where our sweet little media/party room sits on top of the basement. I am in love with every room, every inch of baseboard, every gold-flecked granite countertop, every sagging blind that will soon be replaced.
My body aches like never before and my knee is a steady scream of “get your fucking fat ass off of me or I’m going to buckle and tumble your big butt to the ground right where you stand”. And yet, I walk endlessly from room to room and I load my car over and over and I climb stairs and bend to shove boxes in and out and I dare my knee to go out now because baby, we are on a greased track of “get it done!”.
I feel weirdly motivated to get back to writing and have even listed out some chapters of that book that’s been bothering me in my head for the last few years. And this is where I tell myself that OF COURSE I feel motivated to write while being right in the middle of trying to combine 2 houses into one because that is my brain’s ADD way of saying, “hey, that thing is causing you some stress so why not look at that thing over there!”
I’ll write at some point. Like now. Deep into the night when my body can do no more walking. And do you read it? Whoever you are? Or is this just more musings into the midnight that nobody but me will ever see or read. Nonetheless, Josephine demands a sacrifice and tonight it is my sleep and hot bath time.
As the new house is becoming, so am I. Still Angie but more awake. Still Angie but more motivated. Still Angie but ready to shed some layers. There is growth here of some kind but I am still unsure what to call it. I’ve been an adult longer than I can remember – not in the “turned 18” way of being an adult, but in seeing and feeling the world more completely. Even now, I am seeing and feeling something more. Creativity starting to glow white and hot and weighing the restraints that Covid and depression and being tethered to projects or people that I don’t love. Weighing the restraints of all of that and realizing I can be free any time I want. So I am.
Free.
I’ll write and paint again. I’ll decorate my nest and make a nice home for JD and myself. I’ll eat healthier. I’ll let myself rest when I need to. I’ll be so goddamned grateful for all of it that I can’t even put it into words.
I really am the girl who had a script shoved into my hands at a very, very young age that mapped my life out in children I didn’t want and marriages that left me defeated and miserable and jobs that drained my soul of her lifeblood. I’ve never followed the script so is it any wonder that I still look around at my life and all that I have and can’t believe it’s all mine sometimes.
I’ve travelled the world, eaten in the finest restaurants, watched sunsets and sunrises that broke my heart wide open, and loved hard and been loved hard in return. And now, I own a home that is the kind of home that I was always too afraid to dream of owning.
So I shall treat the home with love and reverence and hold hands with JD in our swing on the deck until we are old and even more deaf.
And I will never EVER stop being grateful.
<3