Seventy-Nine

Day Seventy-Nine:  Work Overload

I have this weird tick where I am uncomfortable with bare walls.  I don’t even mean photo-wise, I mean in way of furniture.  I was just parousing a friend’s blog and they have pictures of a recently re-done bedroom, and there was a space between a bed and a chair, and I cringed.  How strange is that?  I can’t deal with any bare space in a room, it must be filled with some kind of furniture piece or pile of books, a chair, anything to make it look full.

I would love to attribute these obscurities to the fact that I love being surrounded by things, but I think it’s just a need for organised clutter.  I have been teased about my inability to produce wall space on many occaision, or the fact that my desk is always covered and there’s always so many things on my floor, but I don’t really mind.  It’s not messy to me, it’s full.  What a strange way to live.  I already live ina  box, just put a bunch of stuff in it.

I was thinking a lot today about the feeling I get when I walk up to something important.  For example in dover climbing the horrendous mountain that was the steep hill leading to the castle, and then more hills, and more hills, and more sights and beautiful oceanic views and then eventually walking to the oldest castle in England and looking at it with absolute awe.  My chest fills up and there are tingles and I can just feel the importance of where I am.  This has happened in so many places, even when I walked onto Guelph campus for the first time or the first time I met Zoe’s dog, it’s just that feeling you get when something is so new and exciting that your body doesn’t know how to take it.

I crave that feeling.  I get that feeling when I get a new book, or a new yoga mat, or something exciting is about to happen.  I get that feeling everywhere if I try hard enough, but it’s the best when it’s around something new and huge.  Nothing as mundane as my full box of a room (or rooms) would ever make me feel this feeling, right?

Not exactly.

I mean the first time I came home in December into my room in Waterloo I felt appreciation for my huge bed and a sense of fitting in.   I suppose this is where I belong?  I have a hard time feeling comfortable in certain places and having them feel like home.  Where is home?  Is it somewhere that has no bare walls and all of my things?  Or is it a random destination that makes me feel that absolute comfort feeling of overwhelming happiness and joy?  I grapple with this question often as every time I enter a new place I have new feelings for it.

For example right now I am trying to make my room at school feel like my own room.  There are things cluttering every orifice, every wall space, even every floor space, and yet something seems to be missing.  It’s nothing I could put my finger on any time before now and even now I have a hard time figuring what I need to make it complete.  Something tells me it’s just a phase and it will pass, maybe it’s the time of year, but I’ve never actually felt the overwhelming joy while walking into this room.  It’s a goal I set for everywhere I go, I think it’s a good one.

“Home” is such an abstract concept to me. I feel at home in the Bullring the same way I feel at home in friends’s company or while watching a certain tv show.  I feel at home at Sauble Beach or in Mount Forest, but I also felt at home in London, Dublin, and Italy.  I feel at home in places that the there is a possibility for comfort but also adventure.  Maybe that’s what’s missing from this room:  adventure. 

What is up with that?

On that note I will leave this here, but I do suggest everyone taking a good long think over where their home is, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be where you live.  I mean my house with my family definitely feels like home sometimes, but other times it feels more iike an anchor.  Maybe Home with a capital H is something you take with you, more of an aura or an experience, or maybe it’s something that comes with age.  Maybe I will never be Home until I have passed and the meaning of life will be within me.  Maybe that’s what my dad means when he says Brad is Home.  He has found peace.

Lots of love and hugs,

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