A friend and I were talking, not long ago, about our houses and how there are never enough rooms. Even if you have a spare room, it doesn't take long before it becomes filled with stuff and quickly is defined as the "cat room" or the "office" or the "computer room". I went on to tell her that it will be interesting when all the kids leave home - to have these rooms in the house to do with whatever we wish.
The only problem, in my case, is that I will be so old by the time my last child actually leaves home, that I will need - not an office or a craft room - but a therapy room. Come to think of it, I could use a therapy room right now!
I need a therapy room - now! I need there to be a soaking tub in this room and a massage table where my physical therapist can come daily and massage my aging body into shape. I also need a nice comfy couch whereupon I can lie when my psychotherapist attempts to massage my wrinkled mind into some semblance of sanity. It would be a multi-therapy room - a room for all therapy. It would be - my room.
No ... we don't have the space for a therapy room, nor do I have time for therapy right now. When the time comes, I'll probably have to do my own therapy. I'll sit pathetically in any of the vacant rooms of my house and talk to myself or maybe into a recorder ... so I will remember what I have said. I'll take notes and offer advice that I'd never actually take. And then I'll just slide my hunched back up and down on the edge of a door (like an old cat) to massage the tension away. Sometimes, I do that now.
When the day comes that I actually have all the rooms in the house for myself - these rooms now occupied with small people that look a lot like me, and all of their belongings ... I will not know what to do. I will not know what to do with the space or the silence. What will I do ... with all of the rooms?
One of my daughters said to me at dinner recently, "When we're all gone ... you're gonna miss us." I said, "You're gonna miss me too." And then I said, "I don't ever want that day to come ... the day when you all are gone."
And I meant it.
I don't need the rooms. I may be crazy some of the time and tired a lot of the time, but ... I don't need the rooms. I need the children ... to fill their space with their voices and music and crayons and toys and clothes on the floor. I need their sounds bouncing off the walls and their hand prints on the glass. I need their shoes lying on the floor and their feet tapping under the table. I need their toothbrushes on the counters and their towels on the floors. I need their whispers in the darkness, their laughter in the distance and their songs ... never to go silent.
On the upside ... there have been just enough rooms in our house. And, each of the rooms holds the memories that have given life to our home. They are solid and deep and lasting - the rooms and the memories. The rooms have held our lives ... the lives and memories of all of my precious children.
