How to Welcome Yourself Back Home

Artwork by Charlie Robertson

I’ve always felt drawn to a cabin in the woods. 

When I feel shackled, smoke-signals from a faraway chimney call out to me. They whisper tales of warmth, perfect imperfections and eccentric decorations. A cozy life, built on humble grounds. 

Is it the promise of isolation that feels so freeing? The quiet? 

Things are noisy in my mind. I haven’t felt at home there in a while. Things go bump in the night. Unwelcome emotions knock at my door. I greet them coldly, as though they are strangers. I tell them, ‘Wrong house.’ They look inside and agree with me. But it’s not the wrong house at all. And they aren’t really strangers. They were once residents. 

Life out on the street has been unkind to them. I have been unkind to them. So they knock at my front door less and less, knowing they’ll be turned away. 

But I see them stalking in the shadows sometimes. I can feel them getting desperate. 

My desires peeked through the windows – demanding I let myself feel. I boarded the windows up. My anger threw a rock at the glass door – demanding I stand up for her. I called the police. My quirks tried to pick the locks – demanding I let myself be different. I booby trapped it. These strangers are threats to me, and I offer them no safe way inside anymore. 

But now I have kicked out every part of myself and I am a ghost in my own home.  

They say the first step to changing something is accepting it. I lie on the itchy floor of my living room, feeling not alive. For once, I put aside the soundtrack of polite jazz. I blast ‘Creep’ by Radiohead, screaming along as I look at the walls I’ve built. 

I want to burn down my lonely walls. I’ll use the kindling to make a faraway fire. It’s quieter out in the woods. Fewer neighbours around. Maybe I can pick up the rejected parts of myself on the way and build them a new home out there. 

But I don’t need to move to a wasteland to build a plot of land that extends outwards. I don’t need to relocate. I just need to renovate. The materials lie within me already. Renovation feels risky. It’s costly. It’s stressful. But dying in a home that isn’t my own, as someone I don’t recognise, is far scarier. 

I feel the need to put letters in my neighbours’ mailboxes, warning them of my plans to renovate. Foreboding the uncomfortable sounds of my inner construction. But no longer shall I tiptoe in my own street in the impossible effort to avoid a noise complaint. 

I am no carpenter and no psychologist. I know this is going to be messy. I don’t have the expertise in inner or outer construction, but I have a pen, and with it, I will create my own blueprint. 

Thumbtacked to the walls of my mind, it reads: Sleep on the floor. Let dreams keep you warm and listen to what they tell you. When the monsters in the closet go bump in the night, find a spare mattress for them. Put it next to yours and sleep side-by-side. They’re much less scary while drooling and sleeptalking. 

Walk through the home of yourself like an art gallery. Look at it as if for the first time. Take down decorations that are there only for guests to see and not for you to feel. Empty walls are better than art that doesn’t move you. Empty walls can be anything. 

Stop shaking your fist at kids playing in the garden. You are angry not at them, but that your curiosity had already left home by their age. So invite it back in. Go outside, join them, and let young ones teach you why it’s fine to pick three-leaf clovers and leave the four-leafed ones behind. They don’t want the other clovers to think they aren’t special too. 

You have a lot to relearn from those yet to unlearn. They are not naive – they are brave. 

Make a list of house rules. Break them. Remake them. 

Put your washing on and watch it spin for an hour. Find a one-thousand-page document on making every moment count and print several copies. Spend the day watching each page escape, poking its tongue out at you. Poke yours back. Do the dishes and then smear them in dirt. Rinse. Repeat. 

Let yourself fail. Make yourself fail. Show yourself how little it matters. Build the kind of home that throws parties to celebrate everyone’s shortcomings. And watch yourself grow taller each day. Regardless of if you seem to be shrinking, etch your height on the wall in permanent marker every morning. 

Be lame. Paint walls with mismatched colour schemes. Put up a ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ poster and grow confidently devoted to the mantra. Because if you spend a life doing just those three things, that’d be a life well spent. 

When visited by removalists without approval, or if wasps seep in and you’re harbouring unwanted nests, remind them this is your home. If they want to respectfully sit on the couch, they can, but feet off the table please. Tell them you have a dusty Haigh’s chocolate box tucked away for a special occasion. It’s yours for the giving and theirs for the gracious taking, but no longer can they go about making adjustments as they please. 

Have a lover over for dinner once a week. Pour two glasses of red wine and light the cheapest candle you can find. Talk bravely into the night. Show them around your home with comfort. The ones who should stick around will take their shoes off at your door without being asked and admire every peeling inch of paint with a solemn respect. 

The other six nights, pour one glass of wine twice over and light your most expensive candle. Have a romantic dinner – not alone, but with yourself. Hold your own hand. Flirt a little. What have you got to lose? Know that despite your disagreements, this home of yours has always held the greatest love story: one of endless perseverance and loyalty. 

Look around. As the years go by, watch slowly as your home becomes a noisy, overflowing haven of pure chaos. 

But see that it is warm. It is alive. And it is you. 

The final step is to leave the door unlocked. You’ll watch your rooms fill up with unexpected guests and hold tearful reunions with residents that you’ll never again treat like strangers. You’ll watch your desire, anger and quirks settle in and grow to become passion, confidence and creativity once again. They just need to be well nurtured. 

Tucked in at night with a warm glass of milk and a bedtime story, you forgave each other. One forehead kiss at a time, your strangers settled in and became part of you once again. 

It was a tough life out in the cold for them. They asked for a faraway cabin, believing that only when hidden away from the world would you grant them the right to exist safely. 

But in the beautiful chaos of your newly renovated home, there is always a warm bed waiting for them. For you.