The Living Room

     Moments of Glory

This will be a series of moments that I was either completely, or at least semi-victorious in often hair-brained conquests. It's nice to be able to sit back and laugh about things now and then.

 

 The Living Room

    While pregnant, emotions and hormones run unchecked. Sometimes, in the midst of the fracas, a woman can be overwhelmed and find herself carried away on ideas that maybe weren’t thought all the way through. I have done this many times, much to the chagrin of my husband. He is a good man and has been a good sport, knowing that when I get a crazy idea in my head, more often than not, I will be the catalyst and he will be the one who actually completes the project.
    I love taking credit for the whole thing though, of course. We wouldn’t have a living room if not for my hormone driven, hammer wielding madness. James, my wonderful husband, was at work. My daughter, Olivia, was sleeping. I was around seven months pregnant with my son Reagan and just starting to feel the itching of the nesting phase. For some reason, there was an absolutely horrid bedroom where our living room should be. There wasn’t even room for our couches and so the room went largely unused. This had bugged me for the few months we had lived in the house. Finally owning our home gave me such a feeling of creative freedom, it was difficult to keep my ideas, which were plentiful, from growing out of control.
    On this particular day, budgets and prudence were banished to the farthest reaches of my busy mind. With a hammer in hand, I began knocking into the sheet rock of the completely pointless closet taking up space in my would-be living room. I pulled paneling from the lower half of every wall in the room. It was a wood paneling that had been painted over. It was hideous and offended my good taste. I found such gratification in ripping it from the walls. Soon I found myself surrounded with rubble, piles of the results of my work.
    James came home from work and went straight to the kitchen, not even glancing into the room I was destroying. He had no reason to--the space was useless and we usually bypassed it. That wouldn’t be the case much longer.
    James busied himself with something in the kitchen. I kept at my work, quietly. Soon the room was becoming too full to allow for further progress. I needed to start clearing out the debris. I thought about carrying arm loads out through the front door and then heading around the house to the backyard. With a growing belly and overall awkwardness, I decided against this plan and went the more daring route. James was engrossed in whatever he was working on-- so I walked right behind him and out the back door, carrying five foot sections of paneling, depositing them unceremoniously onto the back patio. I didn’t stop to think about the growing pile that would eventually have to be dealt with. I couldn’t be bothered with details as I was on a roll and determined to do as much as I could before my energy ebbed.
    I had carried at least half of the wreckage out to the patio, right behind James’ back and was feeling quite confident. On one of these trips however, his curiosity was awakened and he checked my work space while I was in transit. Oh did he start yelling. Those who know him might find it hard to believe that he’s ever raised his voice in his life, but really, when that boy is upset, he does become human and expresses himself quite well.
    I walked into the room, the face of innocence. He stared at me, holding a board in his hand, absolutely incredulous.
    “What did you do, Miss Daisy?” He had used my pet name-- I took it as a good sign.
    “I’m making us a living room. Do you like it?” I attempted the best puppy dog face that I could. He just shook his head, dropped the board, and walked out of the room.
    I continued working, determined to have the room gutted before I stopped. I get lofty ideas in my little head. I worked furiously, tearing at pieces of wall, fragments flying as my hammer pounded into the walls. I was successful for quite awhile, emptying the useless room of all that made it dysfunctional. Onward and forward, I tarried in the space for hours, until all of a sudden, a board I had been trying to forcefully remove, decided it was going to fight back. The harder I pulled, the more it stuck to its place in the opening of the now skeletal closet. Its resolution was admirable but I would not surrender. I pulled with all I had in me, huffing and puffing, seeing red and feeling the adrenaline rushing through my limbs. I wrenched the board in every direction, twisting and turning it. It refused to give. Just as I was ready to start yelling like those annoying men at the gym that make almost obscene noises as they hoist ridiculous amounts of weight over their heads, my hands slipped, I could find no purchase. The board flew backward, catching me in the side of the head right as I was falling-- landing gracefully in a pile of nails, sheetrock and boards of various lengths.
    I had been defeated. The victorious board laughed over me from it’s place above me. I lay prostrate, feeling every bit of the disappointment, the adrenaline draining from my body. I could not bring myself to even look at the offending closet with its malicious board again. I turned the project over to James, citing physical deficiency. I stayed away from the room of my defeat, only checking in every few weeks as James, his dad, and his brother worked to make something beautiful of the disaster I had caused.
    I was finally able to let my pride go when it was time to texture the beautiful new walls. I gave it all I had, determined to regain some of my former glory-- to feel again a victor in the war of the living room renovation.
    I proudly acknowledge the many compliments I--we-- have received on the masterpiece we created, with yours truly as the spark that got the fire going. James is even happy about it and enjoys the time we spend together as a family in the lovely little living room that is ours, bought with blood, sweat and tears.
    Good things can come from temporary madness.