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Thoughts from a morning’s painting

All 4 walls are now covered in the chosen colour. The ceiling has been painted twice and no longer looks patchy. This morning i have spent a lot of time painting around windows, doors, the ceiling, radiator, that kind of thing. This is a slower process and allows some more detailed thinking time.

My son is 21. He is my only child (that fact might be worthy of a post another day) and for the last 10 months (other than a month over Christmas) he has been at University in California. Since i am in the UK this is quite a long way away (I know stating the obvious). He is due home at the end of next week and i promised to decorate his room for his return. It will be a more grown up place fitting for a young man about to enjoy summer before going off to his English University for his last year. What will happen after that i don’t know. However he does have an American girlfriend now, so his future may not be in this country. This no longer fills me with the kind of dread that it once did. He has grown into a great young man, and he is someone who will and of course should make his own choices.

This is the last time i will decorate his bedroom. In truth once the summer is over he won’t use it very much until next summer. But decoratng, cleaning and freshening it up (teenage boys are messy and  dirty at times) is part of the whole process i am currently going through. As is the decluttering i am starting to do too. I need to clear out some of the remnants of the past 25 years or more.

As i was painting this morning i was thinking about my house; the place i call home. What does it mean to me? It is a place we moved to when my son was only 3 months old. He has grown up here, and it has been a family place. But it has not always been a happy place for me. i have struggled to get hubby to make it the place i wanted it to be those years ago. He isn’t a DIY person and really only does anything when forced. He is not really bothered by mess or by things that aren’t quite finished. i have tried to start and finish things myself, but it can be difficult when the other person in the relationship can’t really be bothered. Once things ‘look better’ he is happy.

So my thoughts this morning were that while i am enjoying doing this for my son as i enjoy making things nice for myself in this home i don’t really have a deep attachment to it. In the past i always thought that if my marriage failed, he would be the one to leave. Now i am not so sure. I think actually that i would be as happy living somewhere else. In fact i would quite like to live somewhere where i had not spent years struggling through my marriage. Where i had not nagged and ranted at times. Where i had not slammed the door and walked out around the block in tears. Where i had not had to learn to keep my mouth shut.

When the time comes i think i can walk away and leave this place. I think i can take with me the good and leave behind the bad. i just don’t know yet when that will be. For now, i am going to live for today. And for next Friday when he comes home for the summer (or for a few days until he goes to visit his university friends).

This morning’s music has been entirely the Verve. My favorite from them is Bitter Sweet Symphony, which i have been singing while i work.

Now it is lunchtime and soon i will be having a ‘chat’ with Sir. If it is worthy of note, i may write something else later!

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