Home Is Where the Heart Is (but Mine Will Forever Belong to Another)
It’s so easy to lose your own sense of “self”.
That might sound pretentious but all it takes is one niggling little thing to throw off your entire grasp of who you are.
Anyone who has spoken to me for more than fifteen minutes will have been subjected to a short little diatribe about how I despise the flat I’m living in. It’s a carefully-prepared anecdote with a little bit of exaggeration and a heap of heavily-layered hatred towards circumstances I am fully aware are ones a lot of less-fortunate people would kill to be living in. “First-world problems” is an apt label.
The anecdote goes like this:
“Well we were in a nice little house until our landlady says she wants to come around one weekend. We assumed it was an inspection but it was actually to tell us that they were selling the house. She said ‘three months’ but we have people coming to view the house within the week so it was probably more like a month. Trouble was, my old man got in touch with the largest letting agent in town and they got in touch with the four biggest landlords, who wouldn’t touch us with a barge pole because we had pet birds.”
“Luckily, we managed to find a flat where the landlord didn’t mind the birds, and it just happened to be next door to a really good mate of mine (I figured if the place is good enough for him it’s good enough for us). We don’t like it there though.”
“Back when we lived in the house in Stonebridge, we knew all our neighbours. Not by name, but they’d always say ‘hello’ and have a chat with you. In this place nobody wants to give you the time of day, I’ve been completely blanked saying hello to a couple of people in the same building1.”
“We live in a really old building and whoever converted it to flats was a real cowboy. The walls are paper-thin and there isn’t any soundproofing in the ceiling, so we regularly hear people taking showers and the lady upstairs in particular likes to power-walk around her flat a lot. I don’t think she’s doing it on purpose, it’s just she’s got laminate flooring. I used to enjoy lie-ins on the weekend but I have to get up now otherwise I’m just staring at the ceiling listening to her walking around.”
“The plumbing is completely shot too. Water started pouring into the lady’s flat downstairs and I know my mate next door has had water pooling into his light fixture when the flat upstairs takes a shower. We actually had no side on the bath for about three months while various plumbers tried to figure out if the leak was coming from our bath.”
“There’s no parking at all. I’ve even had my car broken into on one occasion; I wouldn’t mind but in a posh street full of Mazdas and BMWs, they targeted all the Vauxhall Astras in the street2. Whenever we tell people where we live they say ‘oh Hill Road is really nice’, but actually it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“It’s a nice flat, but we’re not flat people. We’re looking for a house at the moment.”
If you have heard this anecdote, there might have been some variations involving me forgetting that the living room overlooks a park and walking in half-naked almost flashing the poor dog walkers, or the weird damp/cracks in the walls, the impromptu park rave that kept us up one night, etc.
After my wedding proposal, Sam and I went house-hunting. It didn’t look at all good for a few months – we just couldn’t find any houses we could afford. We were seriously considering moving to another town, which was upsetting as all of our friends and family live in Clevedon.
This next bit might sound weird. At a low ebb and as a personal goal, I decided to grow back my beard for the winter and only allow myself to shave it off once I was in my own house, on a weekend, in my own bathroom. You have to understand that it took me years to train my facial hair to the point where I can shave it into the style of one of my literary heroes, Harry Flashman.
The important thing is, I don’t get to tell the flat anecdote any more. As of today we are fully “in” the house. There are loose ends to tie up and a hundred different things that need doing on the house, but it is ours to do with as we please and we have all the time to do it in.
I feel free for the first time in a year. I despised living in the flat – coming home from work was painful as it meant coming back to a place I didn’t want to be. It’s stupid little things as well. Sometimes when I’m home alone (and this is a pretty sad thing to confess) I often break into dance and have my own little party. Singing is sometimes involved. I did that today while cleaning up some things, something I haven’t been able to do for a year because the guy downstairs wouldn’t appreciate 18 stone of geek jumping up and down on his ceiling.
If I ever had one piece of advice to give, it’s to ensure that you always have a safe haven to retreat to and feel completely safe in. If you don’t have that, you don’t have a solid foundation to build your sense of “self” on. It sounds ridiculous but I haven’t really felt like myself for quite sometime3. I haven’t felt particularly inspired lately because I was perpetually feeling thrown off by my home.
Well, I’m feeling pretty damn inspired right now.
Here’s the soppy bit. The really exciting bit is that I’m sharing this slice of paradise with the woman I adore most. I sincerely hopes she feels as comfortable in our new house as I do, and I look forward to everything life throws at the pair of us in the future.
Coheed and Cambria have a song called “2’s My Favourite 1”. The concept behind the song is a little obscure and convoluted to explain, but there’s one lyric that resonates:
Oh this is her
No regrets
I embrace your defects
To confess
You were my every wish
I admit that I will never feel alone
Once I call, oh, you home
The house is great, but it’s only really home because you’re there to share it with me Sammy.
I love you, Samantha Josephine Dyer. Happy Valentine’s Day.
P.S. of course the moustache is back.
- This is absolutely true, at least twice people completely ignored me, and one particular neighbour didn’t really seem comfortable talking to me. I tend to leave out the three or so people who regularly chatted and were friendly out of the anecdote for effect. ↩
- This is true – apart from my car I know that at least one other Astra was broken into the same night, but I am not sure about the third Astra that used to park around the same area. ↩
- I went to a completely rockin’ gig recently with some friends and spent most of it lingering at the back away from the stage at the bar. I should apologise really – we were in the middle of moving house and I had a lot on my mind. I maintain that, now I have somewhere to truly call home, next time I’ll be up at the front with you guys, giving it my all! ↩
Post by Sean Patrick Payne+ | February 14, 2016 at 2:11 pm | Real Life | No comment
Tags: Valentine's Day