Suddenly *Not So* Single Journey

Envisioning a room of my own…

Monday, November 16th, 2009

I’m used to sharing a room.  Let’s face it, I was married for fifteen years.  And we lived together for a year before that.  And then Sam and I lived together for five months…almost to the day.  So, the concept of sharing space, not new to me.  That I’m now sharing space with my daughter, however, is.

And after two short weeks living in the apartment, I am already dreaming of having a room of my own again.  What’s the hold up?  A bed.  When boiled down to its purest response…I gave my ex the ‘I’m Sorry’ bed.

Yes, that’s what I called it.  The ‘I’m Sorry’ bed, not unlike Kobe Bryant’s ‘I’m Sorry’ diamond.  I should have held out for a diamond.  I could have justified keeping that in the divorce.  Instead, I was nice, nicer than I needed to be, and when I moved in with Sam, I gave him the bed, since he had been sleeping on a papa san chair cushion on the floor, which was no small feat considering he’s six feet tall.

So, I have no bed, I’m Sorry or otherwise.  Instead I sleep in the cupboard under the bed.  I’m Harry Potter without the magic.  (Okay, sometimes my life is a little magical.)  And I’m working on getting a bed.

If there’s anything I need to make this new life complete, it’s a new room of my own.  And so when I read on Twitter Moms that Vision Bedding was going to give away a bedroom makeover, I knew I had to at least try to win.  And, I am cautiously optimistic, since I can only go up from October.

October should have been a fantastic month for me.  I mean, the divorce was final, I was living with the man I believed to be my soul mate.  We had been redecorating his house together for over a year, remodeling room by room.  And the room we started with: the master bedroom.  Every bit of his house was truly ours.  Together we had made his house a home.  Only, on the eve of my divorce party, complete with a cake I designed but was created by his step-mother, he broke up with me.  And the divorce party never was.  And the divorce cake ended up being more timely than ever, since it doubled as a divorce and break up cake.  (How many people can say that?)  And *sigh* I haven’t eaten cake since, not even for my son’s birthday at the beginning of November.  The last one left the taste of sadness and bitter disappointment in my mouth that I haven’t quite been able to swallow.

Then, before I could even reconcile myself with the loss of love and home, we had a fight.  And I had to do in three days what had previously taken three weeks.  It was a mad weekend of packing and moving things into storage while I searched for somewhere to lick my wounds and heal.  My final act, one that I do not regret in the least, one that was my first step in the healing process, was to have a cleansing ritual in the back yard.  Okay, that’s just a fancy way of saying that I burned the sheets I had bought when we first remodeled the bedroom.  They were this lovely deep passionate red.  I no longer had a bed.  And I was damned if I was going to leave them for him to romance the new chick on.  The sheets weren’t the only casualty of the cleansing, but they are the most noteworthy and most visible in the photo.

Forget about not having a bedroom, or a bed, suddenly we were sleeping on couches and floors of friends.  As if the breakup wasn’t devastating enough, I ended up homeless, with the kids.  That’s when I vowed to always have a plan B, to trust more cautiously, to not believe empty promises.  That’s when I learned that I could never rely on any man ever to fulfill my basic needs.

So, going from homeless to a two bedroom apartment seemed pretty good.  And it’s a place I can afford on my own, all by myself, which is a good thing, since that’s how it’s being paid for: me…all by myself.  It isn’t fancy.  And I miss having space, since it’s half the size of my old house, and a little more than half the size of Sam’s house, but it’s ALL MINE.

I’ve been forced to redecorate and redesign my whole life.  I’ve had to relinquish my old dreams of a life with the man I loved.  Now, I dream of having my own space, a room designed and decorated entirely by me, a room that not only reflects my tastes, but will serve as a therapeutic retreat for me to nurture my soul and grow, to recover from my past, to strive for my future.  And if it were possible, I know precisely the color scheme I would use, the style of the room in question.

My dreams have always been of the beach.  Someday, I dream of having a cottage on the beach, a fabulous porch to relax on, and a soothing light and airy bedroom to rejuvenate in.  And the beauty of Vision Bedding is that they make bedding to go with such dreams.  I can take my beautiful beach photos, my lovely beach memories and have them transformed into something real and tangible, like bedding and pillows and murals.  And if there’s anything that I need during this time, it’s to surround myself with happy memories.

Vision Bedding has an amazing gallery of stock images that they use.  And after careful consideration, I realized that their pictures are way better than mine and for two BIG reasons.  First, all of my beach pictures are linked to memories I’d rather forget.  And second, their pictures are of waaaay better quality.

So, with no trouble at all I found images for not one, but two pillows.  And then with that accomplished, I looked at blankets.  Oh, so many beach options, so hard to decide…but I found the winner.  How could I not feel rejuvenated snuggled under a palm tree?  It would be impossible.  Oh, which reminds me of the task of trying to select the perfect duvet cover.  It was tempting to go overboard with the beach theme, but I decided on something soothing and simple to coordinate with everything else.  I love stones and sea glass and unusual shells and all kinds of sea debris.

My final task was to find a wall mural and wall art sticker.  Wow.  And I knew it had to be of pictures that I would want to live in.  What a way to immerse myself in relaxation.  So, I found the best mural that truly represents me, my hopes for my life.  Eventually, I will find the right man to fill that other chair.  And the wall stickers had to be my beloved beach debris.

The beach transforms me.  It soothes me.  It’s good for my soul.  And that’s the kind of bedroom I need right now, one that will transform me while I transform my life.

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