Raspberry Iced M

If you want to find me on any ordinary day, there is a good chance I’d be in my living room.

I work there. Write there. Plan there. Read, pray, watch t.v., nap, drink coffee, talk to my family, snuggle the dogs there.

And I cry there.

A lot has happened inside that room that nobody would ever know just by looking. My living room is one of the safest places in the world to me.

But there are two sides to that safety. Because my living room has been both a sanctuary…and a hiding place.

There is a particular feeling that comes over me when I’m home. The door closes and the world outside gets quiet. Nobody expects small talk. I don’t have to perform or explain myself or wonder how I’m being perceived. I can just…be. In my pajamas at inappropriate hours. Hair piled on top of my head. Barefoot. Wrapped in a blanket. Laptop open. Journal nearby. Dogs curled up at my feet.

It’s where my nervous system takes a deep rhetorical breath.

It’s okay now. We’re home.

So much of my life exists in this room. Goals written, budgets made, blog posts prepared, journal pages created, trips researched, task lists checked off, Bible chapters studied, decisions pondered. And there have been ordinary afternoons when I’ve sat on the couch dreaming about the woman I want to become and then tried to figure out what she would do next.

Some people have an office. I have a couch.

Some of my most honest prayers have happened on said couch. Not in a church building. No polished words or eloquent theology. Just a conversation with Jesus. Grateful, confused, angry, desperate, repentant. So the living room is a living room. But it’s also an altar.

It’s where I’ve fallen apart. My living room knows things about me.

It knows how long I can start into absolutely nothing when my brain is in overdrive. It knows the difference between “I’m tired” and “I don’t want to get off this couch because today feels so heavy.” It has watched me cry until my head hurt. It has watched me question everything. It has watched me hold grief that I don’t know what to do with.

And somehow, the same room where I’ve fallen apart has also become the place where I slowly put myself back together.

But safe places can become hiding places if we are not careful. I love being at home. I love solitude. Quiet restores me.

But sometimes I wonder where introversion ends and fear begins. There are times when I’ve strapped myself to the couch because I needed rest. And there are times when I’ve stayed home because the world felt safer if I wasn’t directly involved.

No rejection happens when you don’t reach out. No awkwardness happens when you don’t go. Nobody misunderstands all the things you don’t say. Nobody can decide they don’t like you if you never give them an opportunity to know you.

The walls that protect me here can also make my world very small. That’s the uncomfortable side of safety. Protection becomes isolation so gradually that you don’t notice the difference.

I overthink in this room. I have conducted entire investigations from here. Analyzed text messages. Replayed conversations. Examined tone. Assigned meaning to silence. Constructed hypothetical future scenarios. Argued with people who weren’t even present. Prepared responses to conversations that probably will never happen. Reached conclusions. Reconsidered those conclusions. And then occasionally discovered that none of it meant anything.

My living room is peaceful, but sometimes my brain doesn’t get the memo.

I have sat in this room and thought I am proud of the woman I am becoming.

And I’ve sat in this room and thought I don’t know how anyone could love me.

Sometimes on the same day.

I have looked at my growth and felt hopeful. I’ve looked at my past and felt ashamed. I’ve believed God is changing me. And I’ve wondered if I’m even capable of change. I’ve extended grace to myself, and then withdrawn minutes later.

There are days when I can look at myself with compassion and see a complicated human being who has made mistakes, learned painful lessons, loved imperfectly, failed, repented, grown, and kept going.

And then there are days when all I can see are the mistakes, what they’ve cost me, and what my past means about the person I am now.

My living room has held both women – the one learning to accept herself…and the one still trying to decide if she deserves to be accepted.

And maybe that’s why this room means so much to me. It isn’t beautiful simply because I’ve got pictures on the walls. This room has been witness to my ordinary life. And it’s held me through seasons when I didn’t particularly know how to hold myself.

I don’t want to stop loving my living room. I will probably never be the type of person who needs constant noise and activity. I love the quiet life I’ve built.

But safety should restore me enough to live…not protect me from living.

I want this room to be a place I return to…not the place I refuse to leave. I want solitude to replenish me rather than isolate me. I want quiet to help me hear God rather than give my fears a microphone. I want rest to prepare me for life rather than become my way of avoiding it.

I’m still learning where that line is.

My living room is my safe place…

…and it’s also where I hide sometimes.

It feels like mine. It’s holds contradiction.

And maybe the goal isn’t to choose one side and pretend the other doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s to become aware of which one I’m doing…

To know when I’m resting and when I’m retreating. When I’m processing and when I’m spiraling. To know when the closed door is giving me peace and when it’s keeping life out.

I hope my living room always feels safe. I hope I always have a place where I can close the door, curl up on the couch, talk to God, gather my thoughts, and come back to myself.

But I also hope I remember why safe places are important. They aren’t supposed to become places where we hide from our lives. They’re supposed to become places from which we find the courage to go live them.