This is the house i grew up in.
1990 Manhattan beach, CA my parents buy this shingly 1940s house on a culdesac street right up from the beach.
They were 38/39 years old. My mom had me at 36. Blair was born 2 ½ years later.
Due to a large fuck up when my mom was in labor, Blair’s brain was damaged from lack of oxygen and she came out with a whole lotta cerebral palsy.
i never felt proud to live in the house, it wasn’t a big nice house. It wasn’t a shithole, it was meh.
Behind the nice orderly living room, it was random, disheveled. piles of paperwork/mail/magazines. bulky wheelchair equipment everywhere. It always felt unfinished, an incomplete home.
After i moved back home after college, into my bare, former room space, I never decorated it. It felt pointless, makeup on a troll. I didn’t like anything about it, why try to make it look nicer, or worse- my own. No, I did not want this to be mine.
Besides, I was going to get my own place eventually.
we had become a family of isolationists, living together, existing in loneliness next to each other.
Everyone's shells so strong.
robotic tense purposeless interactions.
it felt darker than I remembered.
[I now see that]
My continuing to live there was like dropping myself into a bowl of
(thicc)
depression syrup, and every day not rescuing myself. letting myself flail around til I lost enough steam that I didn’t care about anything, let alone pulling myself out.
What a damn bowl, my special weird home bowl, extra slippery sides.
The other night I stopped over there to pick up my dog. It was the perfect time of eve, just past sunset pre-darkness, when you can really feel the ocean in the air. I was putting stuff in my car about to leave, and I stopped to look back at the house
And I loved the way it looked. Character and age, one of the last old beach houses that remain untouched. The red door has been there from the beginning, my dad built the deck when i was 6ish. I like how the shingles look now that the paint has worn off, it used to be dark gray.
My mom says the reason the house is still standing is because all the termites are holding hands.
It’s been almost 7 years since I’ve lived there.
[I now see that]
I had to step away from it to notice its value, to realize that there are things i actually like about it.
If only they’d let me help with the inside.
