Lights, Tunnels, & Phone Jacks

There is a light at the end of the tunnel and apparently it’s shining through a space in the wall where a phone jack used to be. It’s clear the beams were cut with such precision around the phone jack it almost looks like it belongs in 2020. I asked the lovable, disorganized blizzard of chaos, also known as my contractor- why? “Why would you do this?” His response was quite simple. “I didn’t know what you would want.”

Actual location of a phone jack

After I removed the phone jack from the wall I felt the urge to cry. I was staring at a gap in beams and I wanted to have a tantrum. My house has been under renovation for 4 months (should have been 4 weeks). I just wanted 1 room to be done and I thought this was it. Oh, what sweet poetry that it would be my writing room. I know he just didn’t want to upset me. I’m going to ignore logic. I’ve been doing it for 3 months anyway. Instead, I will write a long, unnecessary rant about tunnels, lights, and phone jacks. 

Lying there on the floor of this room staring up at the ceiling asking God why he didn’t make me really good at painting walls (and also if He would please help me up off the floor) I turned and saw the phone jack I took off the wall (so it could safely return to 1992) and I laughed at myself. Granted it was probably the sort of laugh that signals an impending break with reality, but a laugh nonetheless. My whole life was in upheaval over my home being ‘beautified’. It’s stupid really. I could have worse problems. 

I remembered being a kid and having dreams in color. Talking on the phone on a landline; giggling with my friends. Maybe I could get a phone like I had when I was 12; clear with neon pink and purple lights. That would be fun! And maybe I still will! (No I won’t). My room was Pepto-Bismol pink. The bedspread was pink and purple and glitter poured from my soul. It was a magical time. Take my word for it. 

 “I didn’t know what you would want.” I didn’t know what I would want either. And isn’t that the entire problem right there? With me and the universe and the stupid fucking gap where ancient communication tools resided? Just yesterday I was 15 years old, talking on the phone, my feet kicked up, and dreaming of being interviewed by Oprah for my Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. But I didn’t know I would want attention, boys, and deliverance from what seemed like unlivable circumstances. Or that I would want my son, then my husband, then a house, then my other son. And to be on the same level as my friends, not be broke, and have a nicer home.  Then I would just want my son to live and he wouldn’t. So what do you really have a right to want after that? Peace? No, it doesn’t come easily. 

 Just one foot in front of the other. That’s what I wanted. And every day that’s all I want. I want us to survive it. For it to matter. For his loss to matter. For me to matter. For what I say to matter. I just want to keep going. I guess there is some light. It’s tiny. And it’s coming from where there was a phone jack in the wall. From 1992 when dreams were pink, purple, covered in glitter, and very possible.