Houses, and *stuff*

I’m focussing on letting go of stuff. Stuff that doesn’t serve me. So that I can focus on the full force of Being and Enjoying. And give way for space to breathe more fully and laugh more. And not agonise about shit I can’t do anything about. 

I don’t think of myself as a particularly materialistic person. I mean, I couldn’t survive without my specific brand moisturiser, dental floss and a comfortable bra, but those three things aside, I am not really much of an acquirer of physical matter. In fact, one of my ambitions is to pack the things that really mean something to me down to the size of a large suitcase. I’d  then capture that stuff in a series of images I can save online somewhere and, Bob’s your uncle, I am free. 

So, when I refer to stuff, I’m not really talking about possessions. Except that I realise actually, I am. 

I have mentioned before that I suffer from terrible nightmares about houses. Whereas, as a teenager, I managed myself to teach myself to fly from the back of the faltering aircraft I was slipping from, and play among the rooftops of the town I lived in, I have made meagre progress with the houses ones. They appear as a sequence of houses that I am thrilled to be moving into (a new one each time) and each of which is unique and wonderful in some way, save for the fact that they are always unfinished/falling down/several storeys high and wobbling around all over the place, and I am not just scared to death but also angry and disappointed. 

I am pausing for a moment in my writing to observe those feelings. A therapist friend once told me that every time we feel a specific feeling, we experience its predecessors as well. And I’m all too aware of early causes of fear and anger that cut me so deep I’ve struggled to completely heal. 

I’ve always assumed that the nightmares stem from my ex’s over-enthusiasm with DIY that at times left me feeling utterly broken and scared of plummeting  to Australia. I won’t rehearse the scenarios here. My eldest son has told me, outright, however, that ‘these nightmares are so obviously about much more than houses, mum.’ 

Well, they are and they aren’t. Leaving houses behind in a way that felt untimely has been a theme of my life. I’ve been back as an adult to visit the house we left when my parents split up. And the house we left when my mum remarried. I mourn not being there when not grandparents’ house was cleared and wish so much that I had been able to have some things that went other ways. In particular some china kittens emerging from seashells that I would have cherished. (And the bright pink polystyrene glittery turrets my granny got hold of from the window display in Beales of Bournemouth one January and hung in the sitting room at Christmas, thereafter, along side home-made cones of coloured card with baubles dripping from them). I visit the highlands of Scotland as often I can, to check that the Croft we owned as a child is still there and waiting for me. I have told the boys that one day we will raise an army and win it back. 

I now have a new house to add to the list - the beautiful old place my dad has recently left in Cumbria, to move into sheltered accommodation in Poole. Leaving aside the gaping hole blown into my life by my parents’ divorce and the headfuck that is them now living, once again, within spitting distance of one another, I was devastated not to be able to say goodbye to that place; devastated not to get up there and nobble a vanful of stuff that held memories for me. I had covid; I simply couldn’t. I asked my dad for a handful of things I thought he might be able to put on one side for me. How much I wanted his collection of pottery made in the highlands that mean so much to both of us.

It’s just stuff, right? Stuff, and houses. Bricks and mortar.  Nothing I need. But I feel bereft, again. No so much, but the feeling is there, in its needling repetition. If I’m honest, a feeling that somewhere along the way, the fact that some of this stuff matters to me, has been ignored or forgotten. Not intentionally. And tat I have just, once again, missed the opportunity to say goodbye in the way I needed to. So that I could close a metaphorical and literal door behind me. Have, if only a modicum, of control over how the chapter ends. Let me remember to give my kids some influence over the chapters we share. 

I’m conscious that I probably need a good slap, writing in this self-indulgent way about things that have to be left behind. But it’s helping me understand who and why I am. Perhaps my ramblings will resonate with someone else, and help. Maybe my kids, one day. And as I reflect on the closing of chapters, I’m musing on the theme of ceremony, and whether I can recreate an opportunity to say goodbye to some of this stuff, that will enable me to let go, in a different, more substantial way.

That feeling of ‘so near and yet so far’, from those nightmares, intrigues me. It’s a feeling I can relate to yet have no recollection of experiencing. Yet even as I write that, I have a sense that I have not allowed myself to. There I am,  on the cusp of moving into this huge, rambling, crazy, multi-levelled house; part wood, part growing out of trees. Lifts and staircases. Magical and mysterious. Everything I wanted, yet skeletal and collapsing. Why? WHY? I don’t remember ever feeling so close to having everything I desired in a material or any sense. Except perhaps as the blonde-bunched pre-schooler who ran around a large garden in a towelling bikini with a violin tucked under her chin. Why does that feeling haunt me so in these nightmares? Always moving in, always about to be given some bad news. Is that the divorce, still? My own marriage? The fear of losing something I want so very much? The fear of things around me collapsing, crashing down? I fear that I am not worthy. That I don’t deserve my castle with turrets?

As I write, I am reminded that I am building a room with a view. A top level of my own home. A space for me. That will not fall down*. The crows’ nest to my Skylark**. Perhaps I can combine a roof-warming celebration with some kind of godalmighty letting go? A very wonderful, funny and intelligent person I know has suggested I get a telescope and cannon. It could be a New Year’s party of a lifetime. Watch this space. And in the meantime, a photographic offering, if I can work out where to put it, of the dolls house I had as a child. Given to me by our German friends Walter and Ruth. Or was that a shop? Anyway. I don’t remember the house ever actually having dolls I played with in it. This year, with the contents of my attic round about, it has candles and some other childhood memories. 

*I have checked this many times with the builders who have remained patient, cheerful and reassuring on the matter

**I refer to Noah and Nelly’s.