Finding Your Fort

I am a homeowner. I've spent the last four months filling this box I bought with real, adult furniture and things.  It wasn't nearly as painful as I had feared it would be. 

My Rented Dog and my Rent-To-Own Furni!

Which is funny to write, considering I'm damn nearly 40.

I have to say, I see myself changed in the strangest ways through this process.  I've filled this space with all the things I want.  Anything I wanted for my home, I purchased.  I've decorated it with all the things I want to surround myself with.  

Shots from around the world!

It's turned out well.  And it's turned out like I had hoped it would.  And it's turned out like a man's house.  Or it's turned out like a 39 year old man who has never been married's house.  

No Caption Needed

Now that the boxes are gone, broken down and stowed in the attic...now that the moving experience is over, I live here.  I will re-write that...I live here.

I have a home.

I found it odd at first when people at work would ask me what I did with my freshly spent weekend.  My answer sounded foreign to me: "I sat at home and did nothing." It sounds lame and reads lame on paper. I felt like Peter Gibbons from Office Space.

"I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it would be!"

But I find these days that I look forward to coming home.  I look forward to sitting in the silence of my box and reading.  I look forward to having my own space to come home to.  I love walking in my door and it smells like my place.  My house isn't so much a house as it is a fort for me.  I mean that in the most 10-year-old-kid kind of way.  

My House

My house has become my fortress of solitude.


Because not all that long ago, I was rendered homeless.  And everything I thought was stable, permanent and the bedrock of my world was shown to be fleeting.

I feel safe here like I never have before in any other place I've ever lived.  I belong here.  I'm needed here.  Because let's face it...those scratches on the wall ain't going to fix themselves, and those repairs that a house seem to constantly need...well, they have to be done by someone.

Handy Harvey

At the age of 39, I've found my place.  And it's a beautiful thing.  It's amazing to have a place where you can be utterly yourself and un- judged and untouched and safe and just be comfortable in your existence.  My fortress of solitude has given me that.

And my meager mortgage payment is worth every cent.  Every month I pony it up with a bit extra just 'cause I love it like that.

And this is my wish for you.  May you find your own fort to maintain and to defend at all costs.  May you find your place where you're comfortable and needed and can breathe easy in the knowledge that you know you'll never have to hear someone say to you, "I love you, I'm in love with you, we're best friends, we have a great time together, we never fight, we're buddies...but I don't want this thing with us.  I need you to get your things and move out."

Dump truck

Because hearing that sucks.

May your fort always be warm and welcoming to you every time you turn that doorknob.  It's not about the space where you find yourself...it's about how you find yourself.  

You'll know you've found your fort when you get there.  Maintain and defend it at all costs.  No matter where it is.  No matter when it is.  No matter who it is.