What DO I like?
I got divorced in the summer of 2009. In the fall, I would be retuning to work in Foreign Country, where I had been working since fall of 2004. During that summer, I got an email from my HR department informing me that after 5 years, I was finally eligible to move from a 2-bedroom apartment into a 2-bedroom house.
This was wonderful news!
I had wanted to move to a 2-bedroom house for a few years and I had put myself on the waiting list. I couldn't have asked for a better time for this to happen: I would be going back, single, after being married for over a decade, and I would moving to a new house. A fresh start!
That summer while I was in the US, I bought a few things for my new house: a new comforter set, some bath towels and a rug, curtains for the living room, a map I planned to hang on the wall. Since I wasn't getting new furniture from the university, I wanted the bed - especially the bed - to look different. It was a king size bed and it would be just for me. I chose a bed cover in a color that I wanted and I didn't even have to consult with anyone else. It was a heady feeling.
After I got back in the fall, I quickly packed my apartment and had the university moving guys help me take my belongings to my new house across campus. Most neighborhoods (which we call "blocks") were arranged in either circles, around a traffic circle, or in rows, where your front porch would face your neighbor's front porch. My block was one of the newer ones, built at the edge of the university, and it was arranged all in a row. The houses were built as row houses, so there would be 8 units in a row, with all except number 1 and number 8, sandwiched between other houses. I was somewhere in the middle. But all 3 "rows" of houses in my block were in one long row. In front of my house, I had a green grassy area. Behind me was the edge of the university, so I had a fence and more grassy area behind me. I didn't have anyone living in front or behind me - simply on either side. It was a great neighborhood.
I have always enjoyed interior decorating. I loved looking at magazines and imagining what my future home would look like. I enjoyed making wherever I lived comfortable and cozy. And I always had just enough knick-knacks to personalize any space, even a furnished apartment. So I felt excited and enthusiastic as I moved into my new house.
I took my time unpacking my belongings which the university movers had brought over. I lived with lots of boxes for weeks. And I also slept in the guest bedroom and showered in the guest bathroom for over a month. Even though my king-size bed had a brand new bed cover and I had put a new headboard on it, it took me a while before I could get myself to sleep in it. I felt safer cocooned in the twin bed in the guest room.
Slowly, I arranged my house and put things away. I made trip after trip to Ikea. I went to an Indian furniture store to see if there were any pieces that I liked. Many of my friends had bought Indian furniture and I loved how the large wooden pieces looked in their homes - so exotic, but more importantly, substantial. Furniture that said "I'm sticking around for a while - because I weigh a ton and you won't want to move me."
When I was growing up in Delaware, I had my own bedroom with my twin bed, a night table, and my toy box. When I was about 10 years old, I asked my parents to buy me a desk. I suppose that's an odd gift request for a 10-year-old but I really wanted one. After we moved to Mexico, the first house we moved into was quite large. My bedroom was easily twice the size of my bedroom back in Delaware. And I had almost no furniture. I asked my parents for a bedroom set - a dresser and night tables. My father got me a set. When I moved into my first apartment on my own in college, I took that bedroom set with me and I sold it to a friend when I moved out.
All the furniture I had was fairly cheap: bookshelves I bought at Walmart and put together myself. My desk from Delaware. My bedroom set from Mexico. All of it had been particle board furniture. I knew some people had real wood furniture, but I never did because I didn't have a lot of money and I had the bad habit of moving constantly.
But now, I found myself in my own little house in Foreign Country. I got the desire to purchase my own, real wood furniture. The first piece I purchased was a large cupboard with 3 drawers and ironwork on 3 doors. It weighed a ton, but the furniture store delivered it and I had bought it for the foyer. It was dark wood and it fit perfectly and I loved it. Every day, I would come home from work and leave my purse on my new furniture piece and I felt like a real grown up. After that, I bought a modern-looking sideboard for the dining room, all square cubbies, and I bought some inserts for it - drawers and doors. I had 3 wooden candleholders that looked perfect on my sideboard. Then, I bought a small dark, carved wooden cabinet with rounded doors. I put that in my living room. I bought a carved rosewood folding screen that I used as a headboard. Finally, I found a matching mirror for my cupboard at the entrance.
I bought these pieces little by little, over a period of months. As I acquired new pieces, I would call university housing and ask them to come and take whatever piece I was replacing. Little by little, my house became mine.
This period of my life was one of great discovery for me. When I was younger, I had always wanted to do something like this: decorate my living space the way I wanted it, but I had not had money. Later, when I was married, I had money, but I had another person that I needed to consult with before making a major purchase like a cupboard. And Ex-husband and I had different tastes and he wasn't one of those "Do whatever you want, honey" kind of husbands. He had an opinion and so compromises were made. For the first time in my life. I had money and I didn't need to consult with anyone. I was finally able to buy what I liked. And it was during those shopping expeditions that I got to discover exactly what I liked.
I painted my house in happy colors: mustard yellow downstairs and sage green upstairs. I framed the $10 map I bought at Office Depot and hung it over the sofa in my living room. A $300 frame makes a $10 map look like a million bucks. I hung bookshelves on an entire wall in the guest room and displayed every book I owned, along with photographs and some of my beaded jewelry. I hung picture collages along the stairs so I would see the beautiful smiling faces of all the people I loved every time I went up or down the stairs. I made my space my own for the two and a half years that I was in my little house.
I also bought scented soap.
Ex-husband has a very sensitive nose. A lot of things were simply too smelly for him. So anything scented had to pass his approval: soap, shampoo, detergent, lotion, candles, you name it. In the years we were together, I would hand him a bottle of something. He'd open it and sniff and either shake his head no or shrug, which meant he could deal with it.
The first time I went shopping after returning to Foreign Country that fall of 2009, I found myself in the health and beauty section. I needed soap. I grabbed the soap we used to buy and then I looked up at the rows and rows of other soaps. I sniffed one soap after the other in the aisle at Carrefour, smiling to myself the whole time. I could buy whatever I wanted. I bought myself a lovely almond-scented soap.
I was slowly learning what I liked.
