where the exhale lives

For me the exhale lives in “home”.

Beyond shelter, for me it is an insatiable need to have a place where I have order (I know that’s an odd value to place first), space, peace, grounding, inspiration, flow state, comfort, ritual, a sanctuary.

There are many things I’ve learned about myself from home. I feel comfortable in smaller spaces. I need to clean/tidy/organize before I can be productive. I meet my mood with sounds, smells, lighting; home evokes emotions. There are pockets of memories, corners of pure hygge, and areas of toddler chaos. It is an embodiment of my life and if it is off, I am off.

5 years into the ‘need to renovate’ conversation, I recently hit my limit. I couldn’t breathe anymore. There was suddenly a sense of urgency, a crawling out of my skin, a sense of not having HOME - all things I couldn’t put my finger on; I was in dire negotiations with my own surroundings, day in and day out.

We made — many arguments, many tears, many compromises later — a choice to move out for a few months and do the renovations. So we packed up. Made it an adventure and moved to the east side of town. Testing out what it’s like to be in a house. Have a yard. To not commute. We started taking walls down on our place where walls had already started to come in, so to speak.

Knowing transition and change is hard on everyone (in particular toddlers), I had started creating Ceremony around this move before it happened. I’ve been blessing the new space as it has welcomed us. I’ve felt lighter living with less ‘stuff’. I’ve felt grounding in pockets of time I’ve found in my days. I’ve taken time to be in ritual to fill in the exhales. I’ve also been giving gratitude to our actual home, to repair a lot of my urgent, seemingly irrational, reactions towards it lately.

And the unexplained urgency, you ask? Well, we discovered mould in the walls from a leak in the last year. The body keeps the score and mine was sending me a loud and clear message. When I found this out, I wept. It’s been a powerful reminder to trust myself, my gut, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense. I’ve been tapping back into this in many areas of my life actually, and it is perhaps why it was so visceral in this case.

And so here I am. Writing this in temporary digs. In the irony of not being in my home, yet feeling more at home than I have in years. And, (to never miss out on a pun), bringing home the point that the embodiment of your life is actually both inside out and outside in. Does it feel one foot in and one foot out? Actually, more like two feet in, but in different places. Will this resolve my feeling of home and exhales? I wish I could say but I don’t actually know. It all feels like a larger living metaphor for an even bigger shift in my life but what it’s taught me so far is to advocate for myself, set firm boundaries, and get shit done.

And to wherever you find your exhale, lean into it. Give it your trust. Don’t take no for an answer.