A Space of My Own
Sat., January 19, 10:46 AM
A Space of My Own
It seems that all of my life I have been looking for space. I suppose the more you have, the more you want; certainly we were not indigent. I always lived with my family (and my family only). I never had to share a bed or eat “in shifts.” In that sense I was fortunate.
My earliest memory is a house with limited space. My mother was very fond of saying, “a place for everything and everything in its place.” But I never could make her understand that I didn’t have a place for everything. She was happy to help by throwing away anything she didn’t see as vital; most games and jigsaw puzzles were missing pieces. I shared a bedroom with both my sister and my brother, and you stored “stuff” (every kid has “stuff”) wherever you could. What’s more, if I actually found a place for something – “this shelf is for my books” – you could be sure that my mother would decide that spot could be used for something else as well.
In my middle teens we moved a somewhat larger house, where my brother had his own room and I shared only with my sister. That house also had both attic and basement for additional storage space, but there still wasn’t any privacy. We couldn’t lock the door to the room because we had the entrance to the attic. The minute we even closed the door, my brother – in the perverse way known to brothers all over – would need something from upstairs.
My “stuff” certainly wasn’t safe from my sister. Under a bed is a good place to put things; so is under a mattress. But I suppose learning to guard my privacy was good preparation for college dorms, where you share a sleeping space with a roommate and every other space, like bathrooms and kitchens, with about fifty others.
Had I known that this was going to be the situation my whole life, I probably would have killed myself then instead of waiting around for improvements. Fortunately, with age comes perspective and patience. I figured I would finally get my own private space – six feet under.
