I want to love our home. I really do.
But every time I think
"It's alright, we can do this, we can live here"
or
start planning to make it beautiful, to stay, to settle.
I am reminded; my plans and plots fall way to despair again.
As I type this another siren blasts past our window.
I can smell unknown youths using our stairwell as a smoking den.
The thumping beat from the balkan dance party happening on a floor below us.
I can also hear my daughter stirring again as the intruders break her sleep. Again.
Not all of our neighbours are so selfish or loud.
The other flat on our floor contains someone much nicer, a constant reminder of what this place once was, lovely Molly. It used to be Molly and Wally until Wally recently passed away.
Now we see Molly for tea a lot more.
Wally was the Mayor of Waltham Forest. They lived here together for 60 years, they raised a family, they watched people come and go. They watched the community around them change, their family raised a family. Now that family is raising a family and still they were here. Now it is just Molly. With her tales of the residents, the concerts thrown by the children who all lived, grew up, played, learnt together in this block of flats. When once everyone knew each other. When everyone cared, looked after and was proud of these flats.
How I am nostalgic for a time I never knew. How I want to walk out of my front door and greet the many people I know on the stairs. To stroll down to the bakers to buy bread without the harsh glare of strip lighting and aisles.
These are just fancies, impossible dreams. I can not alter the world beyond my door in this fashion. I can not expect the other residents to change their lives to suit mine or to alter the routes of policemen and ambulances. So I will look behind my door for now.
There is so much that I love here. We have been here for many years. In many ways Hubble and I have grown up here together. We were so young when we bought it. Just babies really. We made so many mistakes when buying it. We didn't know what we were doing. It was just a starter place, never intended as somewhere to start a family. We treated it as a place to crash, to bring friends in the early hours of the morning and drink until late in the night. To be the unruly neighbours.
No matter how beautiful it is on the inside, the outside will still be there. No matter how much I ice it, it will still be what it is.
We need to find a home. One where I can step outside and smile. One where I can feel safe and cosy when I walk through my front door.
It's time for a change.
Where do you live? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Why?
x
Well, you know where I live - in Bristol - but probably not much about my house. Actually I recognise quite a lot of the same issues that you have. We have also been living in our flat for 15 years and we are constantly talking about moving. The main reasons are that we are on a busy street with rowdy students (of which I used to be one) shouting/singing right outside our window in the small hours. It is also a 2 bed flat and there are, ummm, 5 peole in our family now :-). What keeps us here (as well as finances is the lovely area, high ceilings, big windows and lovely aspect which means we get lots of light. We can't really imagine living anywhere else, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI think if you were to ask anyone we would all have a bug bare on where we live. Mine is the junkies 5 doors up, the lack of parking space everytime I come home, no garden, and a bit too small for us. But there are massive positives... this house is our first together as a couple, I gave birth to Rufus in the front bedroom, I love my kitchen and my children know no other home. xx
ReplyDelete@BPC Wow, 5 people that's amazing! You would never realise, it looks so spacious and lovely in your photos! I don't think there is any part of Bristol you can get away from students in. Which part do you live in?
ReplyDelete@Lou You had a home birth?! Brilliant! I really want to with our next. How was it? Having no garden sucks. I desperately want some outdoor space to potter around in and grow stuff!
x
Hello Crystal,
ReplyDeleteWhat you wrote here is very touching. I understand how you feel because I've lived in bad areas before.
I love where we are now, even if it is extremely noisy (cars, drunk people at night, travellers...) because we are right in front of the train station Gare de Lyon in Paris. But the view is exceptional and each time we are bothered by the noise or people yelling at night, we remind ourselves that we're lucky to have such a beautiful view and to be able to live in such a great city as Paris... I guess the perfect place doesn't exist, unless you have the money that it takes to buy/rent it.
When my daughter was a baby, I used to stay with her father in a very small one-roomed apartment, with the kitchen and the bathroom falling apart. I was so happy when I moved! I felt blessed!
I think you are right to focus on the inside of your home. Happiness and the love of your family is more important than where you live I think. And keep dreaming of a better place, because dreams can come true :)
Having babie's alters our perspective, priorities change, we want something more. I am renting at the mo, a lovely house, lovely location, but it's not mine, were not allowed to paint, to replace anything, it isn't a home. I miss home.
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