Breathe

Today I woke up in my bedroom and it felt.... different.

It is a mess. Patchy yellow walls with areas of bare plaster and filler, old paint some of which is stained by the remains of ancient black mould. Many colours of paint peek through all over the place and reveal the room has always been decorated in warm tones and has always been typically Cornish and suffered from damp.

The room has been patched up many times. Many layers of paint. Congealed paint in some places where it has been allowed to get very thick. The bit of wall behind the door that was replaced by a piece of board that sticks out so there is no skirting board or picture rail. The bit of skirting board that was replaced by the old front of a draw complete with keyhole and two holes where the handles once sat.

The room has a lovely shape and a huge window and so much character, even in this current pre-painted state. As I lie there and look round, I remember how much I like this room. I saw this house completely empty when I looked around and fell in love and seeing this room, like this, I start to fall in love again. It's spirit is starting to talk again.

That old furniture of my Gran's *sigh*

I believe my Gran and Grandpa bought it soon after they married and so it was well over sixty years old. It was a feature of my childhood. Beautiful, heavy wood, shiny. It sat in a huge room in a square house that went from front to back. It looked lovely. It had had a least one home before this and it moved wit my Gran after this but then it moved to the city to be with me before moving to Cornwall.

This house never suited it and it never suited me. I am sure that some of my Gran's personality must have been soaked up by that wood. She was a difficult woman and at her funeral the vicar asked us all to sit and think of a moment we were happy with her. I couldn't. My Mum admitted she couldn't either later on. No nice moment had remained free of the knowledge of her manipulation and unpleasantness.

My Dad is an only child and no woman was ever going to be good enough. I watched my Mum do so much and my Gran give only pain back. Not a good way to build happy memories. So this furniture, just dominated F and I as well as the room and did nothing we wanted it to do. It just trapped air and made friends with damp.

It has made me realise that the room I have slept in for the last six years is one I have actively disliked, and so has F. All of a sudden we like it again, before we even paint. Families give us good ties and bad and I am not sure the tie of her was something I, we, needed in our bedroom.

So now the walls are prepped and treated and as I they dry, the room is about to transform itself. It has been whispering to me all year. Paint me. Make me this colour. Change me. We will all be happier.We will all be able to breathe.

Breathe deep, from our souls. How much will this change for us all?