Making Room
(or creating a home)
When I sold my home last year, I got rid of a lot. Furniture, old notebooks, middle school MASH games, high school notes, even my own baby clothes. Once I had to face my mortality more directly, every object started to feel like one more chore I might be leaving behind for someone I love.
Then I moved in with Todd.
And, for a brief and deeply unfair stretch, I brought that same energy into his house.
Todd has lived here for more than twenty years. He raised both of his now-adult children here. The house itself is old by Massachusetts standards, which is to say, very old. There is history in the walls, in the floors, in the objects, in the dust, and in the many beloved dogs and other animals that have also called this place home.
To say this house carries memory would be putting it lightly.
It has also been a very long time since I lived with anyone. Really lived with them.
The plan had been to stay in the Andover house I bought on my own until Briggs finished high school. Instead came legal divorce, career disruption, a brief and chaotic moment in entrepreneurship, late-stage cancer, and the financial toxicity that follows. Selling that house was the only practical choice. Emotionally, moving fifty miles south of Briggs just as he started high school has been far harder than I am usually willing to admit.
The first day of real packing in Andover, he told me it was “really hard” to know that Todd mattered more than him.
That one gutted me.
I also told him I understood why it felt true, and how sorry I was that I could not keep our life in that neighborhood going on my own any longer.
I forced myself to count the exchange as a parenting win that he could say something so clear and honest to me, even knowing it would hurt. I didn’t have the kind of courage with anyone as a teenager, never mind my parents. That didn’t make it hurt any less.
Todd and I have lived together since September, or around then. We’re bad with dates. There has not been much of a honeymoon period. I’ve been in treatment. Briggs is far away, so I drive constantly. Zara is not always particularly kind to Todd’s son Julian. Everyone in this house, human and canine, has been adjusting.
And while Todd’s house is much bigger than mine was, it was already full before I got here. He is a collector. So are his kids. From the start, I was welcome to bring whatever I wanted, but the truth is, making room has been an ongoing project.
That part has been harder than I expected.
I keep trying to get rid of more things because I think less stuff will make me feel less overwhelmed. I am often jealous of minimalists. I imagine their homes are easier to maintain, easier to breathe in, easier to keep peaceful.
Sadly, though, I am not a minimalist. Neither is anyone who’s ever lived here.
I am not especially materialistic, but I am whimsical. I love color. I love strange things, handmade things, one-of-a-kind things, objects that carry a story or a mood. Objects that make me laugh. My ADHD brain loves to pretend I would be calmer in a cleaner, emptier space.
But I know better.
I am a maximalist.
And this past Saturday, maybe because Briggs was here for the weekend, I suddenly had the energy to make something that felt like all of ours.
I started gathering things from around the house. Small pieces of art we had made. Meaningful objects from Pastoral. Things from trips. Things that make us say, “Isn’t that cool?” I started building a collage wall in the living room-slash-library around the mounted TV. I organized books by color. I pulled together things that had been stored, forgotten, half-lost, or simply waiting.
I didn’t ask permission. I didn’t take a poll. I just built.
And as the piece came together, so did something in me.
For the first time since moving in, I felt less like I was staying in someone else’s house and more like I was helping shape a home.
I don’t know if it will ever be finished. I don’t think any home ever really is.
For a bit there, I thought surviving meant shedding everything.
And now I’m learning that living with other people means making room for what matters, and finding a way to let all of it (and us) belong.
The whole truth is that I made sure to build this collage with painter’s tape, so it’s very fragile, as you can see from a spot above. I wanted to make sure it was easily removable, should it turn out not to be to Todd’s taste. He loves it and me just the way we are.