Lindsay’s House

I visited my friend Lindsay at her new house recently. After her best friend and roommate moved to Southern California, Lindsay knew she was being presented with an opportunity to really spend some time letting her healing and growing from wounds and disappointment she’d been avoiding. A forced change of scenery pushed her to figure out what she needed to do to take care of herself and move forward at her own pace. The things and people that had filled her life weren’t there in the same ways anymore. She had a rare opportunity to face her soul and not shrink away from what she found or let other people or concerns take the attention away from what was going on inside her. I have always admired Lindsay’s strength. She’s one of those confident people. She’s ok with herself. She isn’t afraid of her weakness or the parts of her that feel messy – she’s honest about them but not identified by them. She gets that she’s in process. And because of that, it’s really easy to just be at rest around her. She creates space for people in a really beautiful, subtle way – just inviting them to be who they are and have grace with whoever that is. Lindsay is learning to love herself, and learning to be content in letting Jesus love her. Letting that be enough. Moving into her new house is part of that process.

By the grace of God, Lindsay found a great 2-bedroom home in the Sunset to move into. It’s spacious and quiet with a huge kitchen, a garage and a back yard – unheard of in the city. It’s a few blocks from the beach, and has a great little sheltered patio off the kitchen. It also has an entirely pink bathroom with really great floral wallpaper, dusty rose carpet throughout, a big, neglected garden, and bright yellow walls. The house has so much potential – I couldn’t help but day dream about having a similar place all to myself and really investing in fixing it up – planting a great garden and creating a cozy outdoor space; turning the patio into a little whimsical place of solitude; decorating and filling up the rooms with eclectic, comfy furniture; painting the walls really warm, yummy colors. Lots of projects to invest in. Lindsay and I like to joke about how much our intrinsic need to nurture makes us quick to gravitate toward projects. Historically the boy projects. Life lesson #431: Houses are much healthier outlets for this itch than boys.

As we walked to the beach together, we talked about how easy it is to get swept up thinking that every ounce of her house’s potential has to be realized now. That she has to make everything her vision of perfection instantly. When she comes home and has an extra few hours, Lindsay feels guilty if she isn’t filling her time with something outwardly productive – like painting those yellow walls. I’m exactly the same way, so it was easy for us to commiserate about how hard it is to get out of that mindset. As we talked about this, though, it was fun to realize how maybe there was a lesson in the house. While Lindsay could just sweep through and devote all of her spare time to changing everything about the house that bothers her, that wouldn’t be respecting the process of letting herself settle in and get to know the house and find rest in it with all its little quirks and unfortunate color schemes. And besides, Lindsay’s going through a lot of change herself lately, and who knows if she would even like all the changes she made to it 6 months down the road. She’s in process, too, so it makes sense that her home should reflect that – it should grow with her and become more Lindsay as she becomes more Lindsay.