There are strangers in the house. We’re having the upstairs of our home remodeled and every day a new crop of very kind, professional, strangers walk into my home and they hear things. I’m pretty sure they hear everything. Like this morning for example: I came home from my walk to find Kevin standing on the kitchen counter cramming marshmallows into his mouth from the cabinet we were certain he couldn’t reach. Nothing sends Kevin into a violent rage faster than being caught doing something he knows is wrong. He jumps down from the counter, screams in my face, “Shut up Mommy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” shoves me up against the doorframe then sticks his tongue out at me and says, “Ha ha!”. That does it. I lose my temper and slap him across the face (insert judgement here). If you read this blog regularly you know that the WORST thing you can do when Kevin hits you is hit him back, but that’s what I did, and what happened afterward was pretty ugly. The screaming got pretty loud as was the thud of the computer against the wall and everything else he threw at my head before I had to run out of the house.
And as I stood against the dumpster in my front yard crying I looked up at my windows and saw one of the men, looking down at me with so much pity in his eyes I nearly sobbed. He turned away very quickly, as if he’d been doing something wretched, and disappeared back into the dust that entombs the top floor of my home and I wondered, “What do I sound like to strangers?” What does my family sound like to the strangers upstairs who can hear everything and see nothing?”
One of the men just walked by, smiled, and said, “Happy New Year!” I had forgotten it was New Years Eve. He’s so sweet, this man. I’ll call him George. He’s here the most so he hears the most but he’s never once given me any indication that he’s heard a thing: not the time Kevin screamed, “I bite you!!!!!!!!!!!” or the time he smashed a remote control against the wall, or the time he threw a glass out the front door, or the time, or the time, or the time. I’ve spent so much time terrified that these strangers are judging me based on what I know they hear but maybe I’m wrong? George smiles his big, bright, beautiful smile every time he sees me and now I think maybe he’s trying to tell me something when he does. Maybe with that smile he’s saying, “I’m really sorry for what you go through. We’re all trying to be respectful, mind our business, and give you your privacy but still, we hear things. Some of the things I’ve heard have broken my heart and some have filled it to bursting. Like the time I came downstairs, you and Kevin were holding each other after a particularly loud tantrum. I heard Kevin ask, “Did I hurt you heart?” and you said, “You ARE my heart.” Then there was the time he pitched a fit and started screaming because Chris told him to put away his own laundry. Kevin started screaming and Chris left the house to cool off. After he left we heard Kevin in his bedroom putting away the clothes, crying and saying, “I so sawney, come back now?” Then Chris did come back, Kevin said he was sorry, and when Chris saw Kevin had put his clothes away he nearly cried with joy. “Good job Kevin good job!!!! See that’s how you say you’re sorry, by making the right choice I’m so proud of you!!!!”
Maybe, with his beautiful smile, George is saying, “In two weeks we will be gone. It’s likely I will never see you again, but I want you to know I will never forget what I heard here.”
Or maybe I’m wrong. That saw is pretty damn loud. Maybe George and all the other strangers that have come into my home over the past month never heard a thing. Maybe it’s all in my head. But as George just reminded me it’s New Year’s Eve, and my resolution is this: I will never again be afraid of what I sound like to strangers.
