On music, making noise, and the ordinary freedoms I forgot I missed
The other day, I thought about something I haven’t thought about in years.
A Bluetooth speaker in the bathroom.
When I still owned my first house, I had one sitting in there all the time. I would turn on music while I showered, while I did my hair, while I got ready for work. I sang along. Loudly, probably badly. I never thought much about it. It was just something I did in my house.
We had an Echo in the living room, too, per Caleb’s request. On weekends, I would put music on while I cleaned or did laundry or wandered around doing all the small things that fill up a Saturday.
Caleb was little then. A toddler. He had songs he liked. Songs he would recognize as soon as they came on. Songs that somehow became part of that particular version of our life.
I hadn’t thought about any of this in a very long time because I don’t do it anymore.
Living with my parents has given me a place to land, but it is still someone else’s house. There are other people on the other side of the bathroom wall. Someone might be watching television in the next room. Someone might be sleeping. Someone might simply not want to listen to whatever song I have decided needs to be performed at full volume before eight in the morning.
So somewhere along the way, I stopped. I shower. I get ready. I move through the house quietly.
It wasn’t a sacrifice I ever consciously made. There was no dramatic moment when I packed up a speaker and thought, Well, I guess this part of my life is over.
It just... disappeared.
That is the strange thing about losing your own space. Sometimes you don’t notice everything you have given up until you start imagining getting it back.
For months, I have thought about the obvious things that come with having a home again: bedrooms for the boys, a kitchen that belongs to us, a place for my books, a backyard, a dining room, a deck out back, a door I can close at night and know that everything on the other side of it is ours.
I have thought about furniture and dishes and towels and internet providers and garbage cans and all the hundreds of things required to build a household from almost nothing.
I had not thought about the music.
And then, once I did, I started thinking about all the other little things.
I used to buy candles just because I liked the way they smelled. I would light them in the evening, or plug in a wax warmer and let the whole house smell like something unnecessary and expensive. I don’t really do that anymore.
I used to stretch out on my own couch in the living room and watch whatever I wanted, for as long as I wanted, without feeling like I was occupying the main room of someone else’s house.
I used to go to bed in a T-shirt and no pants because I could walk from my bedroom to the bathroom without considering who I might run into.
That one feels particularly important.
None of these things sound like reasons to buy a house. They are not the things you put on a mortgage application. No one asks whether you qualify for thirty-three years of wax melts and pants-free sleeping.
But maybe this is what I have been missing more than I realized.
Not just privacy.
Permission.
Permission to light the candle. Turn up the music. Take over the couch. Walk around half-dressed. Leave something exactly where I put it because the space belongs to me.
The freedom to stop thinking about how I am existing inside someone else’s home.
And now that this house will soon become ours, I keep picturing the smallest things.
A speaker in the bathroom. Music playing while I stand under the shower. An Echo somewhere downstairs on a Saturday morning. The boys wandering in and out. Chores getting done. Someone complaining about my song choice. Someone else asking me to play theirs next.
Candles burning. Wax melting. A blanket on the couch. Me watching something terrible on television because nobody else gets a vote.
Ordinary things. Our things. Our noise.
And maybe that is one of the things I am most excited to get back.
Not just a house. Not just privacy.
The ability to exist without constantly measuring how much space I am taking up.
To turn something on without wondering if it is too loud. To stretch out on the couch without wondering if someone else wanted the room. To light something because I like the smell. To walk down the hallway in a T-shirt and underwear without staging an emergency evacuation plan.
To sing without remembering there are other people listening.
To make noise in my own life again.
Someday soon, I am going to put a speaker in that bathroom. I am going to turn on a song I love, stand under the shower, and sing along.
No one else will know that anything important is happening.
I will.
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