ROOM
"I want to rent a room, by the water." A wishful notion said in gest to the universe that manifested into reality nearly 14 months later. Patience - the necessary and most useful bullshit of life.
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My move to San Francisco has been a bit like Goldilocks and the three bears. First there was the guy who was a hoarder and while the space was big, it was dirty. He did let me live there for free. He also locked me out one night, routinely had talks with me about how we weren't "assimilating" like he thought we would and on more than one occasion came into my room when I was sleeping. To be clear - nothing in life is free. Then there was the OCD narcissist. We routinely had talks (not face to face given he was non confrontational but via email) regarding all of the things I was doing wrong: wearing shoes after 10 pm, wearing shoes on the carpet square, leaving dishes in the sink, being too loud, shutting the gate too hard, and the list goes on and on and on. Eventually I would just hide out in my room and try and not think about the fact that my rent for my current hermit room was more than my townhouse in Dallas.
But now, now I have Ocean Beach. Now I have a room that is only a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean. I live with 3 other people, most are rarely home and have busy lives and jobs - as do I. No one seems to care much about what I do or don't do. While we all cohabitate, we are seperate entities. It's a welcome relief from my previous living situations. My room is small. Carpeted. Not fancy. It has two windows. Two beautiful windows I can hear the ocean from. The downside - there is no closet. Even for a girl who has most of her things in storage, I still have things. Things that need a closet, or so I thought. I bought some organizers, a rolling rack and some shelves. I hung my art and photography and now my room is a closet. Just one I sleep in. It's perfect. Another reminder of the unintentional intentional way life unfolds.
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I once lived in a two story, two bedroom townhouse. It was idyllic. It had a fireplace, a window seat, a backyard patio with hanging white lights and double doors that opened onto a dining room making it an indoor/outdoor space. The only part I never liked was my closet, while it was a walk in, it was never big ENOUGH. Then my ex moved out. BINGO - problem solved. I took over every closet in the house. Then realized big enough still wasn't big enough, so I converted the second bedroom into one giant walk in (please note I still maintained my things in all other closets). I painted, bought new furniture, hung rock and roll art and photography. I even had the original Rolling Stone magazine with John and Yoko on the cover. It was amazing. A glam room. A dream room. A dream closet. Too bad the girl in it was lost. I would sit in that room with tears streaming down my face wondering why it wasn't making me happy. I would cling to the things and the stuff and desperately want it to be enough. It would be the last room I packed up in my house before I moved. It was the last room I spent time in before walking out the door for the last time. The room that once combined two people's interests into one, that then became the dream closet, then stood empty. It was just a room. It was just another distraction that hadn't worked. Another loss. It turned out big ENOUGH was not actually enough.
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I had to lose everything to win myself. Today all of my belongings fit into my car, of course I have more and someday I'll get them all back. This room is temporary, but the lesson is lifelong. To let go of the idea of happiness, the look of it, the tangible things it can be tied too, I had to uproot myself. I had to do it over and over until I got the lesson I needed. I never saw myself as a person who had her happiness tied to belongings, until I put it all away and walked away. Then I quickly realized how exposed I was, how out in the open and unhidden I had become. I was forced to seperate myself from not only my things but the place I resided. I could not place happiness outside of myself. If I did then everytime change occurs, big life altering change, I could lose my way again. I had to be the puzzle and the pieces. I am someone who likes a homebase, who craves a home. This displacement exercise has been incredibly arduous, fatiguing in ways I'd never thought about. At place number 1 buying groceries was difficult because I couldn't cook there, it was too dirty and disheveled. I would say "well I can't be happy there because I can't cook and I LOVE to cook". So I had to look inside of myself. What are the things I could control? I forced myself to explore San Francisco. I went on dates to get out of that apartment. Ironically enough, in doing this I met my current boyfriend.
At place number 2 I couldn't use the common space like the living room (he hated the tv being up too loud, basically any volume at all) so I had to stay in my room. "Well I can't be happy here because I don't feel comfortable to walk around". I wrote more, I listened to more music, I reconnected with old friends. I put effort into the tangible, into what mattered.
My current apartment is ideally located for weekends but my commute to work is longer. Instead of dwelling on my 45 minute bus ride I've given myself the challenge of learning something new each day. I listen to one new podcast a day. Sometimes I read my book or listen to new music as well. I can't "be happy when". I have to be happy now. Not all the time, but if I'm not it cannot be tied to the external factors of my life. I am the puzzle. I am the pieces.
And as I sit in my 9x9 room with no closet, window open, listening to the waves crash against one another I can't help but laugh a little. The irony of this space, the unaccidental way in which life falls into place makes me smile and dream. So many dreams. It turns out the dreams can never be big ENOUGH....but the place, the room, well it can be just the right size.
