Taking up space

Why did I think I had to move a sofa bed while no one was watching?

When I was little, my mom had a sewing closet off the bathroom. Next to the toilet, there was a door, and behind the door was a good-sized closet with deep shelves that held all of my mom’s sewing and quilting fabrics.

I used to wish I could live in that closet. I dreamed I would make my bed on one of the shelves and store my stuff underneath. It would be just the right size for me and only me.

Making do

When I got older, I lived very briefly in my dream house: a 420-square-foot studio in Hong Kong, with a tiny kitchen and a bathroom so compact that the sink for brushing teeth was actually in the living room. Then my fiancé moved in. We got married, upgraded apartments a few times, and had three kids.

For a while, the only space I had for myself, all for myself, was a closet. More like a cabinet, really. On the top hung my clothes with a rail that pulled down so you could reach the high things, and on the bottom, I kept my treasures—little memories I didn’t have a home for anywhere else. I decorated the inside of my cabinet door as an inspiration wall: a stenciled painting I had made in art class, a quote I liked.

When we moved to New Jersey, my cabinet got upgraded to a walk-in closet, even bigger than my mom’s sewing closet. I fantasized about tucking a little writing desk in there and calling it a studio. During COVID, I sometimes hid in there so that no one in my house could find me.

My closet was my shrine. It became the precious space for me to construct a new identity. I reclaimed my childhood scrapbooks and mix tapes from my mom’s attic and put them all in my closet. I edited, throwing away souvenirs from past trips, organizing old journals and photographs.

When things got busy in the family, I would put other people’s things in my closet, too. Temporarily, I told myself, to get them out of the way so that I could sort through them when I had time. Old clothes, old toys, stationery that no one was using.

Into my closet, I also moved my precious Tree of Life rug, which I had bought myself during a particularly challenging period of young adulthood. It didn’t quite fit, but I made it work. Now I could sleep there.

A room of my own

By this time, I also had an office at work with bits of me in it: a toy box my grandmother had painted for me, seashells collected from various beaches. But it was a public space. Anyone could walk in at any moment.

I had a desk at home, too. This became my new inspiration wall, with magnets, quotes, life plans, treasured photographs. But it was in my bedroom, which I shared with my husband, so it was hardly a place where I could lose myself in my thoughts. I dreamed of an office all of my own, with a door that closed.

During COVID, I got close, taking over a room that had been serving as a guest room. But it was clear that as soon as the lockdown was over, this space would once again be earmarked for guests.

Two years later, when I suddenly found myself out of a job, I decided it was time. With my whole family away for a week, I dragged all of the furniture out of the guest room. Two twin beds, a rug, nightstand, lamps, clothes hangers in the closet. And I dragged in (or tried to, I eventually had to ask for help) everything that I had dreamed of being in my office. A sofa, a desk, my precious books.

I did this in stealth. I didn’t tell my husband I was doing it, figuring it was better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. Why did I think I needed either one? I went to Ikea and paid cash for a bookshelf and a lamp to warm things up. I hung my diplomas.

Finally, I had a room of my own.

It was cathartic. For the first time in 15 years, I could think. I drank tea, meditated, brainstormed, read, wrote. It was a precious time, made possible by a precious space.

What was I afraid of?

What strikes me now, looking back, is: why did I think I had to do this secretively? Why did I try to move an entire sofa bed single-handedly? What was I thinking? What was I afraid of? Why did I think I didn’t deserve this space from the beginning?

We had two extra rooms in our house. One was my husband’s office, and one was the guest room. It never occurred to me that my solitude was more important than a welcoming space for guests. My solitude, which I needed daily, versus guests, who were there at most 14 days per year. It would have seemed outrageous, selfish of me to ask for that, let alone assert my need or want for that.

And yet how much happier might I have been, might my family have been, if I had had a place to retreat to other than my closet when I needed a moment of quiet? I actually thought that my closet was itself a luxury. It was bigger than my husband’s, after all, and I hadn’t even made that a discussion. I had claimed it outright. That in itself felt a little selfish.

Taking up space

What took me so long? It took a pandemic. And an unplanned sabbatical.

It makes me wonder about the rest of us.

What’s your footprint? How much space is 100% yours?

Do you put other people’s stuff in your closet?

How can we expect others to give us space when we don’t take space for ourselves?

🕊️
SAM

Where is your space?

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