Ye Olde Horse House - The Teenagers

In the spirit of writing what you know, writing what bugs you, and writing for the pure sake of writing, I am starting a new series on our house -- Ye Olde Horse House, aka YOHH. Ye, for the ring. Olde as a way to emphasize old. Horse to bring up its history as an old horse ranch house. And house as in home, home wrecker, money pit, glad-we're-not-homeless, the place we live, shelter, needs-lots-of-work, and such.

Welcome!

Today we start with The Teenager chapter. Ye Olde Horse House currently has two teenager hotspots:


The Ecosystem - Our 17-year-old daughter's bedroom, upstairs, which truly could be a site for biological experimentation. Bring your own petri dish and discover what you will. The silver lining is she likes to keep her windows wide open year around, even in the coldest of the cold of Iowa winters, which in my mind kills whatever bacteria and arachnid pupae that might exist in this contained space. The open air philosophy works pretty good considering the second level of our house is not fully heated, for reasons we don't fully know, but we have our theories. (This is why houses are sold in July, not January.) Teengirl spends hours and hours in this space, perfectly content as long as she has her laptop, great grandma's quilt, and supplies of crackers, cheese sticks, and fresh water.

A majestic horse head statue like this
used to post at the base of our neighbor's
driveway. I had a theory that it used to
belong to the house we live in, since it
is a former horse ranch. Last year this
sculpture disappeared, but since I have
little opportunity to chat with neighbors,
I do not know why.

The Habitat - Our 14-year-old's son space is a room in the depths of our basement. Teengirl has dubbed it the habitat. On Friday nights when I come home after work with a few groceries, as is my Friday after-work routine, the boy loads up on slices of pizza, cookies, chips, etc, and says "see you Monday morning" before he heads down to his habitat. It's our joke. The habitat is actually a result of years of blood sweat and tears from Bob who has worked on it in half hour increments to renovate it after the flood of 2007 and my job loss of 2008. It is now a place where the boy can hang out with or without friends. However, he still keeps his room in the upstairs as well, which used to be the girl's room until one day a few years ago they decided to switch. (A blessed occasion that led to super clean rooms for almost a week.)

My sense of timing is off usually all the time. When our basement flooded, I had the job that could have financed a fix but we didn't know it. When I lost my job, I had the time to write a book, but I didn't know how. When I learned how to write a book, I got a job so I didn't have the time. Half hour increments, I keep saying to myself. Live in half hour increments. Live in full increments of not caring about the house, but fully caring about who's in it, nomatter the ecosystems or habitats within. That's what I keep telling myself.

The Ecosystem and the Habitat serve as our interim status of parenthood. Our kids are here, but they're not here -- preparing us for when they will simply not be here. I don't know what happened with the time, because there were plenty of occasions over the years when we longed for them to not be here, or at least to be quiet. In the hours after my daughter was born I sobbed into the shower in post-partum depression, grieving for my old life of freedom sans baby. And all of a sudden, it happens. The babies are quiet and you spend all your time figuring out how to get them back.

Glad to pause before the week starts up again with its nonstoppedness. Hoping to stop now then and take it all in.

Thanks for coming over to my blog.

With love from yours truly,

Natural Born Bleed Heart