THE ROOM

I am in the guest bedroom in my mother’s house. Not the house I grew up in, truth be told, I didn't grow up in any one house but a conglomeration of houses. I can’t even call them homes, because none of them were.   The closest place that I really could call “home” was my grandparents’ house in Bayshore, NY.  That is where we always went back to when the rug got pulled out from under us.  Like the trick you might see an amateur magician try to impress a roomful of people at a party. You know the one; where the dining room table is fully set on a crisp white table cloth and he pulls it out from under the dishes, leaving them barely jarred. Unlike the magicians parlor trick though, our lives where always jarred when our life circumstances would change… those changes inevitably being caused by whether my father picked a good horse or a bad horse, more often than not, he picked a bad horse. 

Back to my mother’s house though, whose guest room I am sitting in.  It used to be my grandparents’ house, but not the one in Bayshore, not the one I grew up in for most of my life, this house, and this room is in New Mexico.  My grandparents bought this house back in 1981; they had it built for them, for their retirement.  They loved it here, they had friends, activities. I think they had a great retirement. When they died, they left the house to my mother so that she would never have to worry about having a place to live.  So it is my mother’s house, but not mine. Not my room full of child hood memories. Those are all locked away safe and sound in my mind. Some of them tarnished, some of them not actually grounded in reality but a twisted kaleidoscope of impressions seen through the eyes of a child.  But they are mine.  Really the only thing I left my childhood with.  I don’t have any dolls that I loved, but I have memories of dolls that I loved. The first one received when I was 3 and in speech therapy. It was given to me as a Christmas present or perhaps for doing a good job, I got to pick which toy I wanted and I fell in love with that doll. She was beautiful with a white christening type of dress and a white cap. She was tiny and precious and I loved her.  I don’t have any pictures of my first chorus experience, but vivid memories of the disappointment of my mom not coming and the terrible headache I developed.   I don’t even have actual pictures of my childhood but I do have memories of pictures that I have seen of a bright eyed little girl sitting in between the legs of her older brother and holding her younger sister.  Another “snapshot” of a little girl standing by a sofa wearing a holiday dress. Her lips smiling, maybe her eyes were too? 

I am sitting in the guest room of my mother’s house in New Mexico. It is blue, a soft light blue, but not a baby blue maybe a sky blue. The ceiling has also been painted the same blue color. The room is a bit of a mess because I have been living here for the last month. Living in it, so my bed is mussed, my shoes thrown haphazardly, my odds and ends lay strewn across the other twin bed. The stuff I use for my morning and evening routine clutter the night stand. Ha, what’s funny about that is I never do my “routine” at any particular time.  My hand and foot lotion I put on when I think to, my medication for my almost dead thyroid, I take when I remember if at all. My nail polish remover and my floss; I have become addicted to flossing my teeth. Not really by choice but because it hurts to have food stuck in them.  My red eye glasses that I always forget to take with me when I leave the house.  The night stand is full and cluttered like my mind, in fact the whole room feels cluttered and in disrepair.  If someone were to take a through my inner mind, I think it would look like my room.  They would have to be careful of where they stepped for all the “stuff” I keep up there, strewn about rather than neatly tucked away. 

My very full suitcase that I have packed with all the things I won’t need before I leave at the end of the week, sits at the foot of my bed, bloated and threatening to tip over.  It is much like my spirit and all of its emotional baggage, bulging at the seams, impossible to handle, even though it’s on wheels, it is out of balance and tips over often.

There is a dresser, it looks nice from a distance but up close it looks cheaply made from the outside, but the drawers slide in and out nicely. Next to that is a double wide filing cabinet that looks sturdy, but the bottom of the drawers fall out if you put anything in them.  I’m leaving a lot of stuff in it for my mom to bring to me when she finally sells the house that belonged to my grandparents that was left to her so that she would never have to worry about having a place to live. 

I’m sitting in this blue bedroom that isn't mine, it’s a blue room. I don’t really like the color blue, at least not this shade, I prefer a darker richer shade of blue, sapphire to be precise, but this is more of sky blue.  I’m going to miss it when I leave but I’m not sure why because I didn't grow up in this room. It doesn't hold any particular sentiment to me, yet it does. Maybe, because I've been in this room before. Maybe what I am feeling is the echo of when I was here last.  Maybe I am feeling the loss I felt two years ago when my world crashed down around my ankles, when the rug, once again was literally pulled out from under me like it was so many times as a child.  The pillow I have been laying my head on each night probably still holds the tears I cried back then when I had lost everything.  The walls still reverberate with the sound of my wailing as I poured out 48 years of hurt and anger into them.  Maybe I hate the color of this room because it is a horrible visual reminder of my deep despair two years ago as I came to grips with the end of my 28 year marriage and the heart wrenching betrayal of not only my husband but of my children as they all moved on so easily with the new woman in his life.  Invisible, this color makes me feel invisible; like if I looked out the window, the walls would melt into the color of the sky, as if this room was never here to start with and neither was I. 

I’m sitting in this room, it isn't my room, but here I sit a full two years later a different person but still the same. I’m sitting in this room, but not for very much longer.