A Home For Things

“ Let me go home
I'm just too far
From where you are
I wanna come home”

~Lyrics by Michael Buble 

"I need a place to put my stuff." I said.

"Like a house? A home? That's usually where people keep their stuff."

I was sitting in the office of a therapist. A nice woman, with a sweet voice, which is why I finally settled on her to chase my demons away.

"My stuff isn't welcome where I live. And I might need to get out quick anyway."
"It sounds like you have one foot out the door already. If you are looking for a new place to put your stuff."
"I'd have both feet out the door if I had a place." I said.

She sat silent for a moment. I thought I might have confused her. Or that she was beginning to realize the true depth of my problems.

"Rather than talk about your needing a new place to put your stuff, why don't we talk about why you want to move it in the first place. Because you don't feel welcome? Because you don't want to be there?"

"I live in a house he built for his life with someone else. He started another family there before me. She left. He didn't want her to. At first anyway. But it's his house, his things, in an area where he wants to live. Not me. I didn't choose it. And I lost my option to choose the moment I got pregnant. He got to keep his house, his job, his things. I lost all of those. Where I wanted to live. Gone. Most of my stuff that would never have fit. Gone. The career I was pursuing. Gone.

I paused. How hard to express the sense of loss that I was feeling. The enormity of what had been taken away from me washed over.

"So you feel like you lost a say in how your life would unfold?"
"Exactly."
"You didn't lose that. At any moment you can choose to change something in your life that you are not happy with."
"But that doesn't effect only me any more. There are 2 children who suffer the consequences of my decisions. They are already suffering at the hands of his."
"As have children of parents since time began. Parents make decisions and their children are affected. You can choose to stay. You can choose to go. Either way your children are involved."

She closed her little notebook, set down her pen, and folded her hands as if to say "session over".

"But I can't" I said.
"Can't what?"
"Can't go. I can't trust him with the kids. I can't trust that they would be safe."
"Now that's a different issue altogether. What can you do instead?"

"What can I do?" I thought. I felt a rising sense of satisfaction. The kind that comes when someone has underestimated the power you have over them. And how callously you can wield that power.