Under Construction

About 8 years ago, we found ourselves outgrowing our house.  We had four little children and a little Cape Cod with a big family room.  I had prayed for that little house "with small white beds up the stairs" but the time had come for a change.  The three boys were in one room with two bunk beds, a single bed, and one dresser.  And they were getting bigger.  And their clothes and their stuff were getting bigger too.  We needed another room.  We hired an architect.  He showed us plans with everything we had asked for.  We sent them out to contractors.  But no one quite knew where to put the heating ducts.  What?  No heat in the new room?  So we found another house.  A perfect house with four bedrooms and lots of old amenities.  Linoleum walls in the bathroom.  A light with a red swirly plastic cover over the fireplace.  Metal cabinets in the kitchen, circa 1950.  We moved in.  We gradually made changes. The first thing to go was the red light over the fireplace, plastic and all. The bathrooms were next.  Last year we decided to tackle the kitchen.  Goodbye metal cabinets and old sink.  Goodbye linoleum backsplash.  Hello new.  We didn't hire an architect.  We used the online design center from Ikea and worked it every which way.  I felt like Joanna Gaines.  We found cabinets and a farmhouse sink.  We found flooring that matched the old wood floors.  We drove two hours each way to find a scratch and dent stove that wasn't so scratch and dent.  My brother taught me to use a nail gun.  My husband painstakingly tiled the backsplash tile by tile.  And it worked.  And we had heat.
But during that time, the 6 weeks that stretched into two and a half months, our house was in complete disarray.  We had moved the refrigerator onto the back porch.  We had hoped to use the grill to cook our food.  We had a microwave set up in the living room and a table in the office.  We had a hot pot for oatmeal in the morning.  I was determined to use our regular dishes to save the environment from all the plastic and paper plates we would have had to use.  I was determined to give my kids three square meals and not order takeout every night.  I had a little tub set up in the living room, which eventually moved to the bathroom where we could wash our utensils.  But all of this was necessary to execute the great change we saw in the Ikea plans that were tacked onto the refrigerator.  Eventually we broke down and bought all the paper products we could fit onto a little tiny table.  We ordered every other night, not every night.  But it was necessary for our sanity.  We went to my mom's for dinner and cooked spaghetti.  My mom brought us Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee in a crock pot.  (Not kidding.)  I don't think we used the grill, partly because we couldn't get out the back door and partly because it was rainy and cold like everyday.  I'm not trying to say my first world problems were any more than that, but we needed to do what we could to make life bearable.

I feel that need for change coming again, but maybe not in the structure of the house itself.  Our house is now outgrowing our family, as one has gone off to college and two more will soon have their driver's licenses and are out of the house more than they are in it.  Perhaps it is in my heart where the biggest change is coming.  It is a time of transition for any mother as she watches her children fly the coop, leave the nest, settle into their own lives.  Again, I am not trying to be dramatic, no one is off on their own yet, but there is a shift going on in this house and this heart that is hard to recognize, yet hard to neglect.  The little babies who were here ten years ago who needed everything done for them are gone, and the cute kids who ran around just five years ago playing games and laughing and being silly are growing up.  I have to grow with them too.  I have to figure out how to be a mom to a kid who is twelve hours away, yet still calls when he is feeling down.  I have to listen and not overreact because well, he is twelve hours away and as much as I would like to get in the car and go, he is twelve hours away!  I have to figure out how to be a mom to a girl who is dating and as much as I have about 18,000 questions about what this means and what the hell is going on, I have to listen and not overreact because she is a teenage girl and really wants to be twelve hours away most of the time.  I have to figure out how to be a good wife, a good coworker even when I'm just not all that interested, and I'd like to be twelve hours away from all of it.  Try as hard as we might, we just can't do it all.  So we change, we sacrifice our old plans and scrap them out for new ones.  Then there are the real-life transitions, a birth of a baby, a death of a loved one, a new job, a new town, a parent who is moving in with your family of six.  The loss of a job.  The fateful diagnosis.  The big things.  We are in constant flux and we don't know how to settle things back to where they belong.  All we know is that things will never be the same again.
But there are also the small moments where we look in the mirror and notice a little more puff, a tiny slant. Maybe a little more spackle?  The moments when we sit quiet and realize we are different.  How did I get here?  Perhaps we go through this shift more often than we think.  While we don't hire architects, we ask friends, spouses, God, what is going on?  What's wrong with this picture, this story?  How do I fix it?  What is wrong with me?  How is it that I am of this age and I am still haunted by questions of who to be and how to live?  How is it that something can happen that makes me feel like I am back in the fifth grade again, or even worse, tenth grade?  So I ask around, trusted friends mostly.  But I'm not past asking the hairdresser or the bartender or the security guard who I have bus duty with, what do you think?  What should I do?  What would you do?  Why did this happen to me?  I suppose it's all part of growing and I just haven't stopped yet, which is a good thing, right.  Everything is out of place, the refrigerator out on the porch, my heart 12 hours away, my mind really just needing a nap.  I'm discombobulated.  Nothing is where you expect it to be, but there are plans being drawn up somewhere.  Somehow you will figure out how to put the pieces, the phases of your life back together in a way that makes more sense.  And you will need to figure out how to make the transition bearable - a glass of wine and a pedicure go a long way, especially after a good run or a long walk.  It is just that, a transition.  No one wants to change you, or wants or expects you to change.  You are who you are, just evolving into a better version of yourself.
We moved the refrigerator to a new spot after knocking down the dining room wall - that was not in the original plans, but when the time came, it was the right thing to do.  Now we can't imagine going back to how it was before.  We lost two closets, but who needs all that closet space?  It's open and airy and we love hanging out around the large island that took the place of the old cabinetry.  There's lots more light and a great view of the backyard.
As for me, I may be on the way to having a wall knocked down and losing some closet space.  But what do I need to store in there anyway?  I need to hold on to the memories and moments that keep me smiling.  I need to remember the kids are still kids, my kids, and they still need a loving, doting mom who asks too many questions and sends prayers and inspirational quotes to kids who are far away.   I need to say the things that make their eyes roll.  I also need to keep those around me who love me and can help me design the kitchen of my dreams, or tell me what parts need to go.  Just as long as we don't lose the heat.