Trappings

Our house - it's a nice house, still it's never felt like home. We picked it out over four years ago - something about the large lilac bush which you could see from the deck off the kitchen - but even after unpacking everything we owned and putting it exactly where it belonged so that it formed our home, the feeling I should have had about it still eluded me. I ignored it at first, thought, give it time, still I remained surrounded by something that was technically mine yet felt like someone - or something - else's altogether.

I began to dislike parts of the house. There is a family room that is underground, a basement above the real basement. It is a den, a cozy place to gather. There is a TV, a couch and a loveseat. Tables, lamps, a fireplace. It feels like a cave. Dry autumn leaves work their way in through the window screens and nestle between those and the glass; when I open them to clear the mess away, I find insects, dead and alive, and plain old dirt, grainy and in clumps, and I feel inadequate, like I should have been able to stop it, stop the mess from coming into my home.

And then there is us. We fixed up the kitchen, gutted what was sticky and mismatched and turned it warm and modern: smooth wood floors, cold, steady counters, walls the color of muted Valentines. And we stand in it and we yell. We leave the room, we don't understand, we slam a cupboard door. We come undone.

I go out and return. After every haircut, day at work, trip to the dentist. It is my house and I call it home. I arrive with bags of groceries, sweep away dust, fold clothes and tuck them away. This house contains us, our skin and our organs, our words and our deeds. I feel at its mercy because it traps me for now. I never loved it the way you should.