The House of Me (Edited)

©2024 Susan Noyes Anderson

image by Scott Webb on Unsplash

We build ourselves just like a house
in this sojourn on earth.
Creatively, we’ve got the skills –
a blessing of our birth.
I’m doing some restructuring
I thought I’d done already.
And yet this house, however loved,
is holding less than steady.

I’ve been proactive over time
(plugging holes and bracing walls)
but this year, leaks are springing up
like weeds, and acid rain still falls.
Don’t be alarmed. I’ve done this stuff before.
I mostly know the ropes –
the ups and downs, the ins, the outs,
the steep hills and the slippery slopes.

This house of mine’s been through a lot;
don’t think that we’re afraid of change.
We may not always like it much,
but neither do we find it strange.
Reframing is creative work,
rebuilding a God-given right,
and being able to do both
is what keeps my house watertight.

Don’t get me wrong; the work’s not welcomed.
I made this old house a home.
But it’s my building and my code.
I’ll edit it, just like this poem.

∞∞∞

While writing The House of Me (Edited), my thoughts were initially trained on the spiritual and psychological “house” that is me. Halfway through, I realized that I was also talking about my physical body, now impacted by cancer, which made the poem more interesting. Of course, we are all renovating ourselves (both the physical and psycho-spiritual aspects) constantly in life. That’s what we came for, right? But it’s a hard job, as all worthy endeavors are – a hard job well worth the doing. And I am committed to making the necessary improvements on every level.

If The House of Me (Edited) resonated with you, you might also relate to Weathering: Seasons of Adversity, Life Train-ing, and Winter Has a Beauty.

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