Why does it matter...

Lying on the bathroom floor, many thoughts go through my head.  Most of them are rather dismal and laced with some degree of self-pity.  Mostly, I just try and endure.  Only doing so is difficult when some sort of war is going on between your innards and the rest of your body. A violent war.  A raging war.  Physical war breeds mental and emotional war thoughts.  SIGH.  Only some of those thoughts just make me wander about in mental circles hours later, when the war is over.

One has to do with the painting and such I have done about the house.  The person helping me all last year said that I was creating visual rest, something that is often helpful for people facing crisis, trials and illness.  In a way, I understand that.  Somewhere along the way, I seem to have lost my tolerance for a messy home about me.  The last thing I do before heading upstairs is to pick up the living room and put away any dishes that were left in the drainer.  The last thing I do before heading downstairs in the morning, mostly, is make my bed.  That way, I awake to a space neat and straight and head up to a bedroom that is the same.  Mess wearies me.  

But white walls is not mess.  So, why does it soothe me so much to finally have them painted?

To paint or strip-and-then-paint has been my dilema for eons...or at least since last a year ago March.  The servant's stairwell and the upper hallway were white.  White walls.  White trim.  All the same paint, too, rather than a gloss on the wood trim.  I found it to be ugly and barren.  

When I ordered the paint for the house, I had not purchased paint in about 10 years.  So, I honestly did not know how expensive it has become.  I did not think at all.  Stupid, I know.  That way, I ended up at the register in Lowe's in utter shock, staring at the read out on the register that flashed a total over $600.  SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR PAINT!

SIGH.

So, when it came to this last section of my house, all I could think about was the cost of those two gallons and would it be wasting them to paint over the wall paper that is rather poorly applied.  Of course, the thought of scraping all the wall paper off was daunting, even though the parlor job was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  The prime stopping factor was that the ceiling is papered as well.  With it being lathe and plaster, I keep worrying about the ceiling coming loose.  I mean, who wallpapers a ceiling?  The parlor had three layers of paper and two of paint beneath the final layer of grey paint.  What in the world would I find?  And how could I possibly keep the carpet clean?  

Most of what I have done of late has been in direct response to some stressor...financial blows, medical blows, memory blows.  Surely, the hallway and stairwell are painted because I wanted closure.  I cannot seem to find it with the pit bull attack, but I sure could find it with the painting, using up those final two gallons of paint, covering those final bits of bothersome walls.  I decided that the possible wasting of paint was far, far, far less than the visual rest I would find with the white covered. Of course, it was not just that they would be painted, but that they would match all the rest of the house to which they are connected...the foyer, main staircase, and parlor.

I switched out the sink in the bathroom, because the original sink was just 26 inches high.  Bending over it was often excruciating with the arthritis.  However, all the rest of the bathroom work was about covering the two garish shades of green, with making the space more peaceful to me.  Now, it is clean and simple and rather beautiful.  Why is it that writhing in a beautiful space is more bearable than writhing in an ugly one?  The pain, the battle, is the same.  Just thinking about it make me think that I am just plain crazy.

Another label the person gave was self care.  If making my home more beautiful to me makes me feel more peaceful, more balanced, then the labor and even the cost is worth it.  I am worth it.  That just sounds so...well, selfish...to me.

However, before I came here, I never realized how having space about me would be helpful.  I did not realize the main floor had high ceilings.  I did not realize, actually, just how large the space would seem to me.  To others, I suppose, my house might to average.  To me, it is positively palatial! 

But it is not merely the space. It is also the beauty of it.  I savor the rich wood.  I chuckle at the thought of my own stained glass window.  I relish the beveled glass, too.  And all the older-house touches tickle my fancy:  the laundry chute, the detail on the back of the fireplace, the servant's stairs/quarters/closet, the walk-up attic, the dining room built-in display case, the wide porch.  Now, the home is even more beautiful: the paint, the parlor-bath, the master bathroom, the laundry space, the living space in the basement, the improvements in the yard, and the incredible change my mother wrought on that porch all add up to a home that is a dream home to me. 

How many people ever get the chance to live in their dream home?

Dream home and dream puppy.  A puppy who curls himself against my head whenever I am writhing on the bathroom home.  Writhing in a simple, beautiful bathroom.  Why does this matter so much to me?

Should it?

To me, I wonder if this is just about control.  So much of my life...my own body, for goodness sake, is out of my control.  Only what am I really controlling?  I could see control being a factor in all the organizing and reducing and such, but in painting?  In gardening?

What does it mean to be content in all circumstances?  Ought I to have been content with a garishly painted bathroom?  Ought I to have been content without the planting, edging, and stepping stones in the yard?

I am convinced, without a single doubt, that this house is a gift from my Good Shepherd.  Bought without seeing it, I have really only had trouble with the repairs the seller essentially deceived me about.  It is nearly a quarter of my previous mortgage.  Current record temperatures aside, it is a home in a local that has weather not harmful to me.  And I am living next door to a woman who constantly amazes me, humbles me, in her efforts to teach me what a neighbor really is.  Inside, outside, in part, and as a whole, the house is an utter blessing to me...for me.

But should it matter so much to me?

Yesterday, I finally hemmed the curtains in my bedroom that my mother gave me in January.  I cannot sew, so I actually stitch witchery-ed them, after much fear and indecision about applying a hot iron to lace curtains.  The first one took nearly four hours just to cut and pin it.  I am so, so poor at measuring.  SIGH.  The second one took just over an hour to complete in full.  After much gnashing of teeth, I figured out that if I folded the curtain in quarters, I would be making a shorter cut and thus have a greater possibility of having a straight line.  After that, the four inch hem went fairly smoothly.  Every time I set eyes upon them now, I relax a bit.  Having curtains that were nearly three feet too long bothered me.

Why does it matter?

I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!