Sometimes I don’t understand why I get so hung up about having a house. About wanting to have rooms, and space and stuff. Well, let is back off about the stuff for the moment.
I have spent a significant amount of my life living in one room. In fact, I am willing to bet that most of you have done the same. If you are currently dealing with children, teenagers or college students – since the dawn of the electronic era, any of the above mentioned off-spring/grandchildren/etc would much rather be behind a door than out in public. Especially if it means that they don’t have to share.
Most of us growing up had a room (bedroom) which, unless you were an only or your family had money, was shared with a sibling. That room was felt to be yours and all jokes about Keep OUT! signs have some basis in reality. In either case, having a door that shut the rest of the world out at least sometimes defined your space as a room.
After high school/secondary school if you went on to college you had a room. Rarely could you afford more. If you headed off to the military, you thought back wistfully on having a room (barracks, no matter what you call them including Dorms, are not the same).
After that it varied. But the goal of most growing up was to have your own room/space/whatever. But then reality sets in. If you travel for work, that room strongly resembles a hotel/motel if you are lucky. If not and it is a deployment, well then you are stacked 2-4 high with dozens to hundreds of your new best friends. Senior enough and you might actually have your own room; something to be prized. (see 1998 comments on Hekkebine and Davidson Huts, 2003-4 discussion on trailer 1/2s and 2010-2011 about old housing areas with personal cells/cubicles vs shiny new with bunkbeds/roommates and down the hall plumbing.)
At this point you probably have no idea where I am going? I have been traveling by ship. A room there is called a cabin, but it is still that individual space. But this is not about sea going at all. It is more like my little corner of the world.
Similar to living in basically one room while in the UK even tho I had a whole house (well – never mind that no one could afford to heat more than one to two rooms which meant lots of wool and the highest indoor temps of 14*C) I find that once our bedroom is cleared out, I am perfectly happy there. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy a comfortable chair with reading/knitting light, but I have everything I need. Comforter, electric power strip for laptop and other assorted chargers. Ineffectual overhead lights are more than compensated by a really strong light near the headboard.
Since I found the second house phone charger (in the corner under a laundry basket) I don’t even have to chase down the house phone on the rare time that it rings. So here I sit, phone, laptop, iPhone, knitting, a very interesting course on networks (with math) being watched in 20 minute increments alternating with a weird audio book while I knit. I have just about everything I need.
Except George. He is in Switzerland.
