It's been a rough couple of weeks... months... fuck it, years. Life usually feels a lot like battling Australian wildfires with a dripping tap and a teaspoon - lurching from one crisis to the next, I'm permanently in reactive mode. It's not the most comfortable way to live at the best of times, but during the '20s (not the roaring ones, oh no, nothing fun like that) it almost feels like every extra stress and strain is a sick joke that the universe is playing. If there's a God, they're up there playing their vicious game of Monopoly with 8 billion player pieces, putting multiple hotels on all the purple streets, and laughing in our faces as we vaguely gesticulate towards the rule book of life and insist that Being a Decent Human, Going To Work (even when hungover) and Not Being a Wanker should at least allow us to Move Directly To Go (and collect 200 quid, PLEASE!).
Anyway, yes, it's been a bit shit recently, for the entire planet and in my house. I don't think I need to go into it too deeply - we're all fighting our tiny battles while signing up for duty in some sort of shitshow mad war against nature that we've been collectively roped into. But I just had a moment of real gratitude.
I don't know what prompted it. Maybe it was rereading a book I've loved for years but haven't revisited for a long time, about someone who lived much longer than they were expected to (or had any right to, given what they put their body through). Maybe it was watching a couple of clips on Facebook of comedians I like talking about hitting your 30s and realising that things are changing, and realising that I'm comfortable at almost 40 with not being "young" any more.
Anyway, for whatever reason, I just looked up from my Friday night vantage point on my battered, cat-clawed, falling apart but SO COMFY couch - dressed for battle against burnout in jarmies, fluffy slippers and a dressing gown, with a cat asleep to my right and a bottle of wine to my left - and thought, "This is the house my son will remember when he's an adult. What do I think of it?"
And you know what? I think it's bloody lovely. It's messy, disorganised, too small, nothing matches, occasionally smells of wee (cat and / or kid) and could do with a deep clean. But from my seat, all I see are thousands of books crammed into a cosy living room with warm lighting, cats asleep on stools and cushions, a fruit bowl full of goodness that usually gets eaten before it goes off, soft corners, family photos and beautiful little touches that say who we are, who loves us and where we've all been.
It's home. And it's ours. If this is what shows up in the memory box of his mind as he grows up and away, I'm OK with that.
