I’m sure I am not alone in feeling displaced and just ready to get back to normal after staying home for such a long time. And not to pile on a pity party, but we’ve had the added stress of repairs going on in our home for the entire time that we have been staying home due to COVID-19, and I feel like yesterday and today have been the first day where there might be a light at the end of this tunnel. We had no workers here. None. It has been months of banging, hammering, sawing, painting. Being in our only few rooms that are not being worked on while other people work on my house has been uncomfortable, to say the least. Loss of control. People in my house that I don’t know, doing jobs that I don’t know how to do is weird and unsettling.
My friends and family have known about our house woes, but its easy to just not mention those things that cause stress in casual conversation with acquaintances and coworkers or colleagues that have their own stressors, or who are dealing with the weight of their clients and what they are experiencing right now. But, it has been a heavy load these past few months, and since I have this blog, I am going to use it to be witnessed. Because, as a therapist, I know that the best way to heal is to be witnessed and validated by someone else that things are tough or not fair. I can see the blessings in all this, but for now, I’m going to practice what I preach, and put out emotions and let them hang, vulnerable to the reactions that they might get.
Back in October of 2019, we had a series of tornados and severe weather come through our general area that threw a slew of golf ball sized hail our way. High winds came through that damaged and ripped part of the roof off of our dome. Yes, I said dome. We’re the weird ones that live in that strange looking house. Not only does it look strange, but no one wants to put a new roof on the dome of a home! Many roofing companies stopped to put in a bid, but few were able to convince their crew to actually get the work done. Needless to say, my husband took this in stride, and treated is as a puzzle to solve- interviewing companies that might want to tackle such a job. Then, winter set in with rain and unstable weather, and it was apparent that this job was not going to get done in any quick amount of time. Roofers need to be safe, so we waited.
We take lots of walks. Roof is half off. 
One side in progress 
In the field watching them work.
Then, in February, a few weeks before the roofers started on the outside, while it was still rainy and soggy outside, we had a raw sewage flood in the basement. That was traumatizing. Waking up to that smell, I honestly thought my husband was having some gastrointestinal problems, but I soon shot right out of bed, realizing that paintings I had taken down from a recent show were standing up on the floor in the basement, waiting to be stored. I ran and rescued anything and everything that might be in the way of the “waters” that were coming up from the drainpipes. Ugh. The smell. The damage. The inability to control anything and everything that was going on. I called in sick to work that day (it was a Wednesday), which I never do, but for some reason, being home and unable to control anything that was going on was better than being at work and not being able to see or control anything that was going on. It was just too much, but at the same time, the damage was to just stuff. Geoff was able to get the pipe fixed outside that had burst, had a plumber come out and check that it was all secure, and a HAZMAT crew came in and cleared everything out of the basement and then a crew came in and they cleaned and cleaned. And tore out walls. And scrubbed the studs that were left.
My studio was in the basement. My work space where I host my supervision sessions is in the basement. Same with the kids play room and a spare bedroom. It’s all coming together and soon we can put things back, but in the meantime, we have had the added stress (much like everyone else) of being at home since mid March due to COVID-19. I have had to find ways to express myself creatively with no studio to work, and my entire studio packed in boxes, and then forced to work from home. Now I had to find creative places to have Zoom supervision sessions for work, and like many, we have taken over the teaching of our kiddos. I’ve worked outside every day except when it is raining, and have actually had a lot of time to myself. But we have also had lots of fun cuddles, and all meals together. The kids are handling it all well. We have technology to thank for that, and I have no shame.
We have lived in a geodesic dome for the past 6 years, and if I hadn’t seen it from the inside, I would never have thought we would live in such a strange house. The other odd thing, is that this house has a basement. We live in Texas, and this area has only a handful of homes that are built with basements. I grew up in Ohio, and I feel like basements are the norm! My husband grew up in Washington state, and again, I feel like basements are common there! But not here. Our home is a gem in many ways, being a dome, and having a basement are just two strange things that this life has given us.
The big empty space 
Rex is relaxing 
Peetey loves ladders.
Actually, I think this home has helped unleash the strangeness within me. Like, it was always within, but living in a home that is untraditional makes you really think about space and design- like how do you hang art and pictures on curved walls? How do you chose paint colors if the interior walls are curved- all the way up to the roof- about 3 stories up? If it hadn’t been for the damage, we wouldn’t be doing all this work. It takes a huge event to process through trauma and move forward, and this is a bit like that. We lived with the colors on the walls from the 1990s. It was there, it wasn’t bothering anyone, but it was old and outdated, and not a reflection of who we are. I picked a warm white for the dome, figuring that in the next 20 years I probably could live with white, and I picked some bright, fun colors for the accent walls- a deep teal color, and pinky Beige for the neutral. Then I will paint some of our furniture in the bright yellows and greens that just resonate with me. Maybe the adjective is not really strangeness, but instead bold. This home and this life has helped us unleash the bold within.
The flood, and the roof damage have forced us to clear out years of clutter, and now we have to put it all back together in a way that makes sense, and in a way that reflects our new style, and our new boldness. I have no idea how it will all turn out, but it will look great. It will feel fresh and new, and something to be proud of. We will emerge different, but beautiful. And being stuck on one floor, and now in 3 rooms, with my favorite people has been an experience that I don’t want to forget.
