Finding Home and a Heart (journal)

The move was sudden. Fire erupted from the old house and events quickly beckoned. That week after the fire was a haze of camping, mourning and moving.

Emotions were being smoothed with sundaes, milkshakes and ice cream. But after the fire, I wanted dirt, bruises and pain. People wanted their stuff moved, and I wanted to burn through those ashes, carry smoked possessions and be done with it. I wanted to sweat ashes and roll in darkness. But every time, I exerted my muscle and sweated in the house of darkness, I was doing it wrong.

The waiting was intense, slow and aggravating. At first, the moving truck had to move today, then it had to move tomorrow. I wanted motion. I exerted my arms. I exerted my feet. But when I was told, all I had done was wrong. I cried.        

I wanted to fight. In the absence of one, I was useless. The sick suffered and the healthy mourned. I wanted to raise my arms and wage war. I wanted to ease the pain, to take away the suffering.

When the junk finally moved, death came for the cat. The reaper had his day, and the fight was over before a battleground had been set. The night that death came. I felt his stroke, his caress. I was near that cursed house, and its phantoms blazed in the darkness of my mind. I was paralyzed by it, by the fear.

The loss caused personal panic. It was not long after that, I learned that fighting, whatever metaphysical shape it takes, is built into my soul. Hammered into the flesh and burned into the spirit. 

Fighting is not a want. Fighting s a need. Expressing one's values and desires, even when wrong, nourishes the soul beyond the carbohydrates of the flesh.

But that being said, the time for fighting had ended. There was nothing left to do but to build. Housekeeping has never been a guiding value of mine. My version of a home is a place to come after an adventure. A warm spot filled with friends and family. A place to retire and lay down one's burdens. Building up a household is a skill that has never interested me. I seek to live on the edges of other people's homes, on their beds and their couches.

In other people's homes, I'm most comfortable if I can make myself invisible, undetectable but there. Much like a parasitic organism, I value the freedom of invisibility, a freedom of not being ruled or controlled.

During the first few weeks of living in the new house, people needed things. They needed things I had, they needed spaces I occupied, and they needed my body for labor. I was given the opportunity to share, but I didn't want to share. They needed my car, and I handed over the keys. They offered to negotiate, but I didn't want to make treaties. They needed the computer, to relax and play games. They needed the room I occupied. They said, "just tell me to leave, if you want me to go", but I didn't want to ask. I just wanted things to be mine.

So when I finally got a laptop from a friend, I wanted it to be mine. I wanted it to be a space to be free, without the need to negotiate. It had a "lived in" feeling. A space that had belonged to someone else but was now handed over to me. No one occupied it. I wanted it to become a home.

So when my housemate asked to trade laptops, I wanted to fight. I refused. Earlier I had promised that I would trade laptops, if this laptop had turned out to be better, but when my housemate came for the better laptop, I kept it, against my own promise.

A day later, the laptop broke. My fiancé tripped over it and cracked the screen.

When I found my broken laptop, I found my broken fiancé. He was slumped over, tired and exhausted, looking upset. I tried to belittle the damage, but when doing so, my voice cracked. I was upset and couldn't hide.

In a distressed state, my fiancé slept. On my own, I tried to salvage the damage by buying a computer myself, but the choices were awkward and unclear. All the choices left me tired and confused. 

I went back, and my fiancé was waiting for me, he had barely woken up. He convinced me to go back, and we made the choice together. He paid. I didn't ask him to do this, but it seemed important. He gave almost everything he had, just to make me feel better. It made him feel better. It made me feel better. I felt like I had a friend. I felt loved. I think that was his point.

The next day, I woke up and decided to make amends. I went to the store and got my neglected housemate a desired toy, a Flareon stuffy. A week before, we roamed the mall together, and he loitered in front of this doll. Pokémon dolls have no value to me, but the doll has value to my housemate. When I bought the doll, I tucked it away in my jacket, it stared at me with its stupid eyes. I tucked it in farther, covering, it's soulless stare.

The doll  was an offering of understanding. People's desires are important. His desires are important. My desires are important. Somehow we have to reconcile these differences, because ultimately, home is where the heart is at.