My beautiful house needs more life in it, I tell myself. A huge dining room with eleven foot ceilings and a six foot farm table, await dinner guests I never invite. Friends would come if I opened the door, but I hide in my house, a haven from all that worries me, my safe room so to speak.
I want family to gather around me as I cook in the kitchen. Another somewhat ironic thought. I don't cook. Yet I dream of those family occasions that others have and I don't. Will never have again. Then I miss those that have left me.
My cottage dream and my farm table fantasy are real to me. I've always been a house freak and as an antique dealer I hoard more than I sell. It has always been like that for me. Once I visited a counselor and talked about my need for these things, especially a large old house. "I am possessed with these thoughts," I told her, waiting for her to agree with my desires.
Her reply to me was simple. "It's not the house. It's not the farm table."
"Oh yes it is." I looked at her in disbelief. "Didn't I just tell you how much I love old things, houses, antiques. My life and money have been spent buying things with a history."
"It's more." She smiled, a knowing smile that made me wonder. "Time's up. See you next week."
Time was up. She had that right. I did not plan to go back. She did not take insurance and I had other things to spend my money on.
Yet I mulled over her words and thought about my dream house. One house stood out that I tried to buy a few years back, sight unseen in person. I drooled over the photos of a large pink Victorian house, a beauty renovated enough to give modern conveniences, but not so much as to take away the home's bones. The entrance was tall, with stairs that looked like they could reach heaven. A large dining room and living room were connected by a central brick fireplace that centered between them, the walls removed. A large table, set with white china, made you believe dinner would be served at any moment. An front porch with a swing and a screened in upstairs porch at the end of the second level hallway, with a door opening out where one could sit unobserved and watch the surrounding neighbors.
In that moment of visualizing the pink house I would never own, I saw what I was doing inside of it. A huge Christmas tree filled a corner of the hallway, lights twinkling, inviting, magical. My mother was sitting on a sofa in the living room on an antique sofa. Her health not good, but still able for me to bring her the forty miles from her home in St. Augustine to stay with me.
Laughter came from the kitchen. My sister and brother-in-law were pulling together snacks and beverages, while we waited for my nephew and his wife to arrive from south Florida.
Life. Laughter. Family. Love. All filled the house that I craved with all my heart. The farm table in the dining room waited for our dinner. Later we would sit in front of the fireplace (no fire, since it can be stinking hot in Florida in December) and talk and watch a movie together.
When everyone became tired, I had bedrooms filled with antique beds and quilts so my family could snuggle down for a good night's rest until Christmas morning arrived the next day.
As a child I dreamed of having a huge family, children running in the yard, and a house spilling over with life. The reality is I had a family, quirky to say the least, but they were mine. I had a husband who liked to say 'no' to many of my crazy ideas, a Victorian house top on that list. My mother could drive you crazy on days she was stubborn but she was my champion and the most interesting mother around. They are gone now. The family I have left leading lives in different states and it is difficult for me to travel to see them as it is for them to come to me.
I have filled my home with dogs that needed love. Dogs that I adore. My children. They also keep me close to home and slow to open my door to let others in. I protect them like the mother I never was to children.
I plan to put up my Christmas tree today while six dogs watch from various chairs in my living room. My lovely 1906 Victorian bungalow will glow with lights when I've finished decorating. The part of the dream that came true is my house. I finally have that cottage that haunted me for years and a farm table large enough for a gathering.
I think the counselor was right. It isn't about the house, the table. It is about my need for family and friends. I am getting older, okay, old. My friends don't see it and thank heavens I don't look my age, but on days I feel my age, when my bones hurt and I wonder what the future will hold, a sadness for the life I missed, the huge family, the children, whatever happy holiday movies are made of, hits close to home.
Would I have changed anything over the years for the picture-perfect life? Sometimes I wonder. When I reflect on my family and my younger days the answer is always the same.
I loved my husband. I loved being with him. A good man, a handsome man, an aggravating man, but mine. I never doubted that. He was enough for all our years together. He put family first, his and mine, and two mothers were well taken care of.
My own mother? I smile when I think about her. Our similarities are scary. She lost my dad right as she turned sixty. I lost my husband right as I turned sixty. Her remaining years (twenty-eight of the) spent being daring and bold for the time. At eighty-four she started writing again. I felt daring and bold as a widow but I had her cheering for me. When she died last year my support team vanished. I want to call her and tell her my dreams, and hear her say, "Go. Do it." When I made my move this year from my house of thirty years to my little cottage in the country I swear I heard her cheering me on.
My friends are wonderful. I say that so you know I am not alone. Yet they are now having grandchildren and their lives are moving in different directions. I just seem to miss a family life that never quite became the life I thought I would have yet was all the life I wanted when everyone was still living.
My goals are great now. I am writing, painting, and just adopted another dog. My heart is full of good things when I keep the sadness from creeping in. Life never turns out the way we expected, yet my life now fits me well, and I am blessed.
It is the holidays and a rainy day today that makes me feel the blues. It may be time to put my farm table to good use and turn my fantasy into a reality.
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