My Heart- I would love for you to come over: Part 1

“My Heart” is a new series on some of my deepest feelings. I always think about doing a blog on whatever is on my heart... but I’ve never had the courage to do it. Let’s see how this goes!

If This were my living room I would have you over in a heartbeat. I would have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to snacks I could make for friends. I would be texting a different friend everyday asking if they wanted to come over for Netflix and a play date. If this were my loving room... I would never be lonely.

This is ”my” current living room. There’s another direction this post can go with the quotations... but that’s another post.

I grew up in a tiny house with our family on the border line of poverty. A single mom raising three kids is tough. It definitely showed inside the home. At a very early age, all three of us were taught the responsibilities of chores, caring for our (too many) pets, and having coffee made before mom returned home for work.

Theres definitely nothing wrong with teaching your kids responsibilities at an early age. After a while, kids will only do so much on their own with out an example being set for them. It never took long for a freshly vacuumed floor to be covered in spilled coffee, cigarette ashes, and animal feces. I swore that I would never live in those conditions ever again.

(With every sentence of this blog I type, there is a whole separate blog in itself.)

My friends hated coming to my house. They would always ask if I could just play at their house. Neighboring friends would not even step inside. I never got to have any sleep overs (though I did finally get to have one or two in high school when we moved into our grandparents house)

I remember being left home alone while my siblings were at school activities, and my mom at work. There would be a list of chores on the table my mom had left for me to do. Everyone they would come home, and I would be in SO much trouble. To this day, my siblings bring up the inside joke of “Courtney would only clean off the coffee table, and say she “cleaned the living room.”

It’s true. I thought that maybe if the living room just “looked clean” It would feel better. Sometimes I would get in trouble for “doing nothing.” When really I had spent an hour trying to scrub a random stain off the fl, not actually knowing it was permanent.

Looking back at that specific memory... I’m not really sure what my mom excepted out of an 8-10 year old. Well, I kinda do, but that’s another story for a different day.

Back to today. The stains on this floor were only made by spilled drinks, cat throw up, toddler snacks and big people snacks. But when I look at it, it still FEELS the same. An innocent comment was once made with a friend here “We can come back!” She told her distraught daughter, after telling her it’s time to go.” She then added in a different tone “Ooooorr maybe they can just visit us.” They didn’t mean it that way, but my heart sunk.

You‘re probably wondering why I haven’t just called Stanley Steamer yet? Hah! Well, one, I still have a toddler and three cats. Two, I always feel like I can do everything myself cheaper. Turns out, you need TIME if you DIY things. Three, renting from here was always supposed to be temporary. Six years ago temporary.

I would love to have you over.

Just not here.