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Broke Wife, Big City
A
(rented) room of one’s own
By Aprill Brandon
They looked bigger in the pictures online. The rooms. My compliments to
the photographer.
The pictures also managed to somehow downplay the whole floral aspect
of the room. Did you ever sleep over at your grandma’s house in the
1980’s? It looked just like that. Complete with the four-poster bed and
the beige, eternally out-of-date, carpet. And, of course, the floral
wallpaper. The floral curtains. The chair in the corner covered in
clashing floral upholstery.
I didn’t even know flowers had it in them to be so aggressive.
But this room, it’s mine. For two nights at least.
My husband kicked me out of the house. The beautiful bastard. He had
silently watched for months as the daily grind wore away at me,
chipping relentlessly at those parts of me that were buried underneath
the gargantuan title of MOM.
He watched and then said enough. Take three days. Go somewhere. Just
you.
There were a thousand reasons not to go. Seven hundred of them, at
least, being things that had to be done IMMEDIATELY. He let me spout
off a mere handful of these reasons before interrupting me with perhaps
the two most beautiful sentences ever uttered in the English language:
“I don’t care. You’re going.”
As I type this I have a Harry Potter marathon on the supernaturally
tiny TV they provided. I’m reclining on a ridiculously comfortable bed
(with floral bedsheets) surrounded by books and graphic novels and back
issues of magazines and newspapers that I wouldn’t be able to finish
even if I had three months.
I keep waiting for an interruption. For a knock at the door. For a
feral howl of my name to reach my ears. For... anything.
It never comes.
I’m so happy.
Remember your room from childhood? From when you were a teenager? How
it was your sanctuary? The place you could dream in, wonder and plan
who you would become. It was perhaps the only place where all the
possibilities and all your potential was allowed out in the open.
It has been a very long time since I had that feeling.
“What are you going to do?” my friends asked me when they heard I was
temporarily running away from home.
Nothing.
Nothing?
Nothing.
Or perhaps everything.
I don’t know and it’s delicious.
So, I end up doing things. And then I don’t do things. And then I think
about doing more things but just lay in my beautiful but possibly
haunted rented Victorian bed for a bit longer because sometimes just
thinking about doing things is better than actually doing them. I keep
checking the time. An old habit from my old life, with kids. It’s going
slow, the minutes and hours crawling forward, in no hurry to get
anywhere. I briefly debate stealing this precious clock.
And then, perhaps the most magical thing of all happens. I start to
miss them. My family.
It has been a very long time since I’ve had that feeling.
It’s lovely.
And, I now realize, vital.
I don’t know how I can ever repay my husband for this gift, for these
three days he gave me to remember who I was, who I still am, underneath
all the MOM. And to remember all the reasons I decided to take that
title in the first place.
But should he ever feel the need to run away from home, I know a place.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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