Home is where your heart is?

Today and yesterday, my aunts came over to clean our house. I'm not sure why, but this felt so embarrassing to me, like I'm somehow not taking care of our house well enough or something. A bunch of them came over, with their buckets and Swiffers and sponges, a whole arsenal to conquer the empty, sad house full of me, my dirt, my cobwebs, my messes, my dirty towels, and my dirty dishes. The house, really, was barely dusty or dirty, for that matter, but nevertheless, I felt really uncomfortable, like I'm not doing a good job managing everything during this time while my mom is away at Cleveland Clinic.

Today, on my way home from running, I stopped and got a bail of straw and a pumpkin to put outside, along with a witch and a tombstone, just the way my mom does every year in October. It did not look the same at all, although it was the same exact things she puts out time after time. In every way, I feel inadequate. I cook the same things but they do not taste nearly as good. And I do my laundry, but it does not come out as neat and clean as when she does it. I can't even go grocery shopping as well as she can. I feel like I can't live up to her standard, the impeccable way she does things all the time. And not in a snobby way, but that's just how she does things. My aunts kept joking, "Why are we even here? Look at this place, she should see my house." Another one would respond, "Oh wait! I found a cobweb. I feel better about being here now." And they'd all giggle. I cringed, and tried not to listen. Although I knew they didn't mean anything, I felt ashamed that I had not kept up the housework in a manner that was appropriate for my mom (she's the one who asked them to come over and clean). I was really upset. I barely spoke as I got ready for work this morning. And I cried all the way there.

When I came home this evening, after I set up my sad excuse for a Fall display in our front yard, I noticed how different the house felt the moment I walked through the door. It smelled different. It looked different, even though it, of course, was still our house. I can't really describe this the way I really want to, but you know how after you clean your house and it feels different? Safe? Comforting? Calming? New? Just different somehow...And you sit down, on your couch in your freshly swept and dusted living room, and you breathe a type of sigh, almost like that of relief. Especially in the Fall, when it's slightly chilly outside, and you light a candle, and it's a dreary sky, with dark, heavy clouds hanging in the air...it's a great feeling. And you sit there until it becomes dusk outside, enjoying the glow of your candle as it dances and casts shadows across your lemony-fresh house. Like I said, I can't really describe it the way I want. But if you've ever spent an entire day just cleaning your house, in the Fall, on a dreary day, and afterwards you light a candle and just relax quietly until the sun sets, then you know what I mean. It makes me want to wrap up in a hand-crocheted blanket and drink red wine.

I walked upstairs into our living room, and I felt this calming feeling, but it was immediately smashed to bits by panic and distress. My mom didn't clean this house. I didn't clean this house. Where is everyone? And even though this whole thought process takes only a milisecond to understand, it all hits me: WHAM--they're in Cleveland. She's in Cleveland. At the Cleveland Clinic. On the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit. She left September 14th. She won't be home until December. I haven't talked to her in 3 days. I haven't seen her in 9 days. I haven't touched her, or hugged her, or kissed her in nearly 3 weeks.

I swallowed hard, forced all of these feelings back. "Stop it," I thought to myself. I put away some cleaning supplies and hung up some towels my aunts left sitting out. I walked into my room, and on my bed was a card, sitting on my pillow. Inside was a "hang in there" card and money from my aunt Janny. I threw them across the room. I began to panic again, began to choke up, and before I knew it, I was standing in the middle of our extra bedroom, sobbing, becoming light-headed, struggling to keep myself under control, and not even able to remember howI got there . A "flood" of emotions doesn't begin to describe it.

I went into the bathroom and splashed warm water on my face. I washed off my makeup. I avoided looking at myself in the mirror. I turned my cell phone off. I showered. I painted for nearly 5 hours. Now I'm writing this. I guess you could call it a "mental health" night.

It's so shocking to me, so overwhelming, that the same house that used to bring me such comfort, especially in the Fall, especially when I would come home during weekends when I lived at school, is now the place I detest to be in the most. I avoid coming home. I hate coming home. It does not feel like my home anymore. I am afraid that even when they come home, this will never again feel like home to me. The saying "Home is where your heart is," comes to mind. Well, if home is where your heart is, then mine is completely lost. We're talking really lost, the in-the-woods, no-map, scary-noises-in-the-bushes, no light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-kind of lost.