My Own Sunroom

I move into my own place in a couple of weeks. No roommates. My own space. I started my own agency recently and will run my office out of this new place. I can't wait. However, I am procrastinating from packing. I am not a fan of packing. Never have been. This is more about inspiring myself to feel the energy and excitement of having my own place.

I wrote the following piece last fall. It seems fitting. It captures why I am in this moment at this very stage in my life. It's a reason behind why I chose life over destruction. Here you go, and may you enjoy.

"And this is our sunroom."

I looked around the room, every little corner filled with sunlight. There was such a natural calm to the room. Next to the picture window, just under the sill, sat a small table and some comfortable looking chairs. The whole place just begged me to sit down and just think for a while.

I was fourteen at the time and had never seen a room quite like this one. "A...a sunroom?" I finally stuttered out.

"Yes, sort of like our breakfast room," he said.

"But didn't we just pass that?" I asked him.

"No," he said and laughed. "That was our, um, hmmm...my parents call it the formal dining room."

I instantly thought of our small battered table in my kitchen. All the contrasts between my new friend and I flashed quickly in my mind. His big house with its own separate land placed just far enough away from his neighours. My small, pseudo-lego, government-subsidized townhouse that connected to two other identical ones to mine.

I thought of his lawn with its beautiful thriving trees and alive with its multi-coloured flowers. My house had a small patch of grass with nothing but a neatly mown face. I thought of the flower bed that Mom always attempted to grow each year, but how the soil was never rich enough.

He had two parents who could give him anything he wanted. My Mother was raising me on her own. I never needed. Anything. But he never even wanted. There was such a huge gap in the collective standard of living. I felt sick. The gap was so expansive and it threatened to swallow me whole if I ever jumped across it.

That was twenty years ago. I sit here now, typing away on my laptop, and think of how twenty years can do much to a man's confidence. It all truly started five years ago with a single phone call.

"I want to move in with you when I turn sixteen," she politely demanded over the phone.

"Okay," I said.

"And my room needs to have an ocean view," she whispered.

Okay, I said.

That was five years ago. I have been moving along the path to slow, but sure success ever since. Funny, but it took the words of my then-seven-year old niece to give me the initial push.

I've seen so many beautiful houses in my life. So much character in deep, dark mahogany handrails, in attics with so many rooms that it could be a house on its own, and yet each time the old familiar feeling returned. I always felt sick. It would never be mine.

Nice place, I would say. Then ask to use the bathroom and hope not to vomit.

Yet...I walked into what would be considered a mansion. It was monolithic. I gazed around. What a house. Piano. Chandelier. Vaulted ceilings. Large winding staircase. I joined the party outside and walked past the outdoor pool and the large, catered open bar.

"I could have this," I said to Sarah.

She smiled at me. "Yup."

"You only have so many years before she turns sixteen," she added.

"Yup," I said.

Not to state an old adage that time waits for no man, but...we only have so much of it. Once it's gone; it's gone. I see a tool-belt wrapped around my waist, hear the workers by my side, and taste the glistening sweat sliding down my skin. I can feel the blueprint design under my fingers. My house. Built with my own hands and the way I want it to be.

Anything is possible. While there is still time. I dream but I am now finally living those dreams. I have my own business and am almost finished the last edition to my memoir. I even have an editor now. Soon it will be pitched to publishing houses. I will be the agency that promotes it. It is not about the money, nor the thought of it, that drives and fuels me. No. Not at all.

It is the thought that one day I will sit in my own sunroom. With a table right next to the picture window, and just under the sill, a small table with some comfortable looking chairs. I will greet my sleepy-eyed niece as she walks in for breakfast and ask her..."How was your ocean-room view?" And Mom will follow in right behind her. I can't wait for that day.

Until we meet again, my friends. Until we meet again.

"I am looking forward to a sunrise where I don't have to face a storm to go outside. And here at last, with a new found understanding, all the baggage not withstanding, it means no more. And all is well. When I am looking into friendly eyes. Lo how their hands keep me warm and hang on tight....and that's my plan. Yeah that's my plan." - Justin Hines