Mark sometimes jokes that he doesn't know how he even met me, given how often I leave the house. We concede the point to fate. But it's true. I am a person little bothered by long stretches of solitude and dearly fond of tugging 'home' around the sharp shoulders of a room. I am a homebody.
When Mark moved into this apartment, I took down all my pictures, unshelved all my books, and moved every piece of furniture to allow our home to grow naturally into the space that was once mine alone. But even then, I grew anxious waiting to return the rooms to a state of homeyness. The effects of living in a car for a year are still apparent in Mark's life. Many of his photos are unframed, and some of his dearest belongings are stored in the basements of relatives from here to California. When he set out on his journey, it was on a track faster and freer than the remnants of interior decorating could keep up with.
I found I couldn't wait for his material possessions to catch up. One framed print and a family photo are all that Mark has to represent him on our walls. My library has vacated a single shelf for his stereo. We carried in a few new cabinets to accommodate his arrival, and wedding gifts have begun to add heft to our common life, but I still have a niggling sense that my over-abundance of nesting impulses unbalance the character of our home. I do not want to dominate any sphere of our life, domestic or otherwise.
Perhaps some of these apparent imbalances will resolve themselves when we eventually move out of this apartment into a home that is truly joint space. Maybe time alone will help obscure the memory that this was my apartment before it was his also. Of course, the conscious effort to seek balance is fundamental. I hope to demonstrate my love, respect, and interest in my husband by celebrating his full entrance into the sacred creation of our home. In fact, I refuse to define home without him, although my impulses may urge me to move faster or more thoroughly than he is able to.
It is not, despite what it sounds, a sacrifice. This kind partnership is as beneficial to me as to him or anyone else--it is less fragile, more complex, more sustainable than building alone. I am not surrendering control, really. I offer my talents for homemaking and welcome his with my will fully intact. I choose this new means of staying at home.
And here, there remains an imbalance that I will never try to correct--I choose this new making of home with far more joy than regret, a greater swell of love than defensiveness, a tidal wave of eagerness that dilutes the trickle of worry to utter insignificance.
