House Drama

This is most definitely my parents' house. Actually it's more my dad's house than anyone else's. It fits him perfectly and therefore makes me cringe. We love each other very much and have a very good relationship, but we're two very (very, very) different people with practically opposite interests and lifestyles. Obviously we also have differing taste in houses. What I mean by that is that I have taste and my dad doesn't, haha. I'm not trying to be mean, but seriously- if you've seen my house you know what I'm talking about.

The outside is very ugly. That's a little less colorful than how I tend to describe its appearance to myself while waiting at the next intersection over and being forced to look at it until the light changes. The first time you see it, it's almost normal looking. But if you keep looking you soon realize that everything from the window placement to the ugly pink brick just doesn't quite work together. It's like a study in bad design or something. The composition of it just isn't visually appealing, and if you care about those things you start trying to figure out how to rearrange it to make it better. To top it off, it belongs to a group of houses that all look similar- only the other houses have better architecture. And there's just too much pink brick involved on the block to be healthy.

The inside is more interesting and quite a bit better as far as architecture, except that this is cancelled out by the fact that the walls are all beige and the trim is a hideous shiny grey color. It's so incredibly boring that I just can't stand it. And of course my dad loves it in all its horrible boringness. At least my mom is on my side about the walls, and we're working on convincing my dad to add some color at least. Just about anything would be better.

But the appearance of the house isn't actually that important. What really gets me is how hard it is to live in. For one thing, three floors is too many stairs for my always-exhausted self. The one thing you don't want to do to someone who is a) tired and b) has to cook almost every meal herself is to put stairs between her room and the kitchen, or between homework and the couch, between all of her art supplies and the tv. Add to this equation a dog who must be carried because he can't get up the stairs otherwise, and who needs to be a couch nap-assistant part of the time but needs to go to the bathroom outside other times. To make this even more fun let's remember that I'm really good at forgetting important things and leaving them places, only to realize later that I left my phone downstairs or forgot to bring down a new trash bag or toilet paper or something else essential. The greatest time to do the stairs is when I run out of toilet paper in the middle of the night, have to trek upstairs to get more, bring it back down all while in some state of drugged sleepiness, hoping that I'm not about to fall down and break something.

As much as I hate the stairs, I've adapted all right- I think very hard before going up or down and most of the time these days I actually get where I'm going with what I need. But once I get upstairs, the kitchen makes me crazy.

It must have been designed for someone really tall. I can't even touch to bottom of the top shelf of the cabinets without standing on something. This makes it hard to get heavy things up and down because I'm not very strong. The layout of the kitchen is annoying because there's a rectangular island in the middle and really important things- the sink, stove, fridge and pantry- on each side of it. So when cooking I end up going in endless circles around the island, and I can't aim myself very well so I can't even count the number of times I've run into the corners painfully. The kitchen is also large and spread out, so you have to walk a lot while cooking. And trust me, I don't need more exercise. I end up more exhausted after cooking than is really necessary. To make it worse is the fact that my mom likes to go on about how great the kitchen is and how fun it is to cook in, when she very rarely cooks anything. I think she likes the look of it more than anything because trust me, it's not fun to cook in. It's exhausting. Trust me, I run smack into that island every freaking day while on my fifth trip around to the fridge.

And let's not forget the wonderful fact that the laundry room is on the top floor. My parents think it's so convenient because it's right next to their bedroom, which is great for them, but it means I have to haul my laundry up two flights of stairs. I've started doing smaller loads more often to avoid hurting myself, and enlisting parental help in carrying things up.

Recently I realized that my eagerness to move out had less to do with a need to feel more independent and more to do with a need to live somewhere that's easier on my body. I grew up in a one story house with a small kitchen, and during college lived in an apartment that was similar. Having everything on one floor leaves me with so much more energy to do other things. It's better for my dog, too. I really miss not wasting precious energy on the stairs all the time.

But as I start to consider the idea that I could be living with my parents for longer than I would like or had planned, I'm trying really hard to appreciate this house more. At the least, it's somewhere to safely live, and it's a loving environment despite the occasional drama. So I've been trying to focus more on what I like about my life here as much as I can- like cable on a nice big tv, watching thunderstorms from the balcony, and the gas stove which works a lot better than anything else I've had. Lately my attempts to feel better about the house have been working, more or less. And I am glad that my parents like it even if their gushing gets obnoxious sometimes.

Maybe someday I'll live somewhere easier, or my parents will find someplace to install an elevator, lol. But until then I'm just going to deal and do my best to appreciate having a safe place to be.