Can We Talk About Space?

Not the final frontier kind, space a lot closer to home.

Lovely Rita - not a Meter Maid, but my writing shed

Over the past few years, I’ve given a lot of thought to space. Not the space that’s out there, big black hole kinda space, no. But space that’s much closer to home, and recently, I’ve had cause to think about it a lot. I thought I might try to get some of it straight in my head and hope you don’t mind me sharing it with you. You never know, it might just help one of us.

Let me just go back a bit. If I was ever going to change anything in my life, I would divorce my first husband sooner. And it was just after I let him talk me into staying long enough to move house that I realised how much my own space mattered to me. When we were still pretending trying to make it work, I found space in the bathroom. Bubble bath. Book. Wine. Door shut. Space.

Then when I eventually divorced him and bought my own house, I realised that one of the things that had been wrong all that time was that I just wanted to be on my own. I didn’t want his company, or indeed anybody else’s inside the house, except for my still young son. I cherished the times with my boy but looked forward to those dad days to be on my own. I looked forward to those post 5pm alternate Saturdays, after which I would race around and do all of my chores. A clean and tidy house all to myself. Sometimes I would try super hard not to talk to a single soul until I had work on Monday morning, and counted those weekend wins as massive.

Leaping forward, my current husband was also post-divorce, and had also lived on his own, valuing his own space. We quickly fell into a routine whereby we generally lived our own lives during the day, coming together to cook dinner and enjoy each other’s company in the evening. When it was time for us to sell up urban and move rural, we bought a house big enough to facilitate space for each other, even through to retirement, making sure we could enjoy whatever we needed to do without getting in the others way.

And it worked. Until Putin marched in to Ukraine and we brought a family of four non-English speakers (the non-English bit was totally accidental) to live with us. We ended up with four adults, two children and two one-year-old Border Collies in a house just used to two adults plus our twin agents of chaos. Just the two (plus two) of us. Together but separate. It was challenging, fun, chaos, loud, and the only space to ourselves suddenly became our bedroom and my bath time again. But we made it work.

Not long after they left, my mum died, and my dad told everybody he thought he would come live with us. Great. Thanks dad. Could I say no? Of course not. After inviting four total strangers to stay, how could I even think about saying no to my own father, but boy has this been hard. Our Ukrainian family were determined to help out, to pay their way in actions because they had no money. Dad seems determined not to. I was very vocal about not being the cook or anybody’s cleaner, and especially not his entertainment committee, and it is better than it was, but it is still hard.

At the same time, my mobility has been significantly impaired while I waited for bi-lateral hip replacement, and my home, which would normally be my sanctuary, started feeling like my prison. This time, it wasn’t so much about physical space, although that was a part of it, but the space inside my head. Yes, I was in a lot of pain from my hips, frustrated that I’d had to stop running, walking and then even swimming. The enforced sitting still was doing wonders for my writing, but wherever I went, dad went too. I know he just wanted company, but if I sat in the living room, he would sit in there too. If I sat in the dining room, which previously had been my domain in the daytime, he would join me.

And I hadn’t realised until that point how much space it takes in my head to share a quiet previously thinking space with somebody else. He is a tapper. A finger drummer. Tapping out rhythms that he has no idea he is doing. He does that thing with his slippers/mules where he slaps the sole of the shoe against his foot while he sits. And he has restless leg syndrome every single minute that he is sitting down and it all makes noise. He falls asleep sitting there and snores, even though he denies it. Even his breathing is audible these days.

God help him, I know none of it is on purpose or his fault. But when you’ve just cracked the wording for that sentence that has felt completely wrong for days and days, and he comes and stands next to you, looking out of a window that has the same view as the window he had just looked out of thirty seconds earlier in the other room, and drums some indeterminable rhythm on the windowsill I swear it takes every ounce of my composure not to shout *just go away* at him**. But I won’t, because he’s my dad. And my perfectly crafted sentence is gone. Probably forever.

Fully aware of the stress I was drowning in, my husband, my Knight in Shining Armour husband suggested I have a shed built in the garden that I might write in. Well, you can imagine, I didn’t need it suggesting twice. My shed is fully insulated, double glazed, has French doors and a covered patio, a tin roof to hear the rain better, a log burner and the most important thing of all, space. MY space. Nobody else is allowed in. Dad has finally got over the just checking you’ve got everything you need period. He no longer finds gardening jobs to do that allow him to see in. He is happy to have a job to do and keeps my coal and wood topped up, but thankfully now, just asks if this is a shed day, and leaves me to it. Mostly. Thank all the gods.

Then, last month, my father-in-law died, and my husband just assumed that his mum would come and live with us. Why wouldn’t he? And suddenly much of the remaining space inside our house, that I had fought so hard to keep, seemed lost in a heartbeat. Our last spare room was spoken for. There would be another bum on the couches in the living room. Another space less, and another reason to only ever sit in your place, for moving to sit elsewhere would mean sitting in somebody else’s place.

Don’t get me wrong, my mother-in-law is lovely and would be determined to not be in the way. But she is 93, almost blind and partially deaf. She won’t be able to help being in the way. She’d need the tv turned up even from dad’s already turned up level. Another noise pollution even harder to escape from and another reason to spend more time in lovely Rita, my writing shed.

But hold your horses. After staying with us while we waited for the funeral, thank goodness Mary wants to stay in her own house. And, my own issues aside, it is totally the right thing for Mary. The three kids have agreed to take responsibility shifts a week about, so once every three weeks it’s likely my husband will go down to stay a couple of nights with her. Or he may bring her here. The others will do the same. I’m sure that will work for everybody. I’m sleeping with everything crossed that it does.

Not least because, miracle of miracles, when it is my husband’s turn next, drumroll please, he is taking dad with him! A momentous realisation/decision. Dad is booked into a hotel and will visit his sisters, his friend, my brother, his old ukulele group and his church, and it sounds marvellous. While I will have the whole blinking house to myself for almost six glorious, clean and tidy days. And I cannot wait.

BUT…

The last time I thought I was going to have the house to myself was the very week that my father-in-law died, and so dad understandably cancelled all his plans and stayed here. I felt the potential for meltdown rising and rising and felt dreadful because my husband was dealing with losing his father and I was trying not to sulk/panic/meltdown because I wasn’t going to get the space to myself that we’d planned. It felt selfish. Petty. Spoilt brattish.

But it totally underlined how important time on my own, in my own house is to my mental health. Not just in my shed; I know how privileged I am to have my lovely shed, but sometimes, as lovely as she is, I do feel a little like do I have to go visit with Rita? When all I want to do is sit in the dining room, in my old favourite chair, and write with just my dogs for company and my husband was doing whatever he wanted to do elsewhere.

And then when my dad had a tantrum because we couldn’t find a cheap hotel that was nicer than all the cheap ones I’d found within his budget and said well I might just not go at all, I genuinely looked at hotels nearby that I could escape to instead of him going anywhere, until my common sense and bank account caught up with me.

So until it is time for my next holiday on my own, away in the sun, or just in my own gloriously empty house, I will make the most of Rita. I will send positive vibes that Mary keeps enjoying her own company, and that it works for her kids. I know that one day, we’ll get our house back just to ourselves as people keep helpfully telling me, but given the number of times dad reminds his doctor says he’s strong enough to see his hundredth, I need to just get on with it. Make the most of each little bit of every day. And before anybody tells me how lucky I am to have this precious time with my dad, ours has never been that kind of relationship. But I know. I do.

This morning, for the first time in years, I feel fit enough to take a walk down part of Sally’s Walk. A local walk that has been completely inaccessible to me, that right now overflows with a sea of bluebells and wild garlic. If this were smell-a-vision I could share it with you, but trust me, it is intoxicating. I might even hold off posting this so I can include pictures because I want everybody to revel in it just as much.

Until then, think about your own space. The different space invaders if you have any. The space you have versus the space you need. The different spaces for the different parts of you. And share them with us, post a picture and make us all jealous.

** I know that sentence was too long but it is what it is…

EDIT: I went for my walk and it was just absolutely fabulous. Then I rewarded us with coffee and cake in the tea rooms. A perfect afternoon.

Sally’s Walk complete with dappled shade encouraging swathes of bluebells and wild garlic