Around a week before the first Covid lockdown I found myself in London for Project Manager training with work. Whenever I’m in London for a few nights I try to get myself to the theatre and that time I went to see the musical of Matilda.
In Matilda there is a song which reduced me to tears. It’s called My House.
While sat in the theatre I was immediately transported to being shown around a bedsit with my support worker and someone from the council. There was work being done to replace the bathroom and kitchen, there were no internal doors (the previous tenant removed them all apparently), and it was concrete floors throughout. I was being shown hills you could see in the far distance and they were telling me to imagine what it would look like with snow on them. They pretended the rest of the estate, including the high-rises, weren’t so close I could have a conversation with someone living there if I opened the window. I stood there, afraid, chewing on the sleeve of my cardigan. I didn’t have much option but to accept the flat, but it was nice of them to act like I had a choice without pointing out I’d be “intentionally homeless” if I didn’t.
I would be living in that dingy bedsit when I first heard My House. I’d spend 23 hours a day in that box during the upcoming lockdowns. I felt like I was still homeless when I was living there. But it was My House.
On these walls I hang wonderful pictures
Through this window I can watch the seasons change
By this lamp I can read, and I, I am set free!
It wasn’t until I moved to where I sit typing this piece that I felt like I had a home. But that’s not what I heard in those lyrics. I heard a song about having somewhere to shut out the world. A place where there are books and something of your own on the walls.
This roof keeps me dry when the rain falls
This door helps to keep the cold at bay
On this floor I can stand on my own two feet
That bedsit got me back on my feet in a number of different ways. I found my way back into paid employment, I did a lot of work on my mental health, it was the end of my homelessness, it was where I was living when I met my partner, it was where I learned that I could cope under some extraordinarily shitty circumstances, it was where I learned how to create a new life for myself, it was where I learned what I needed from life.
I don’t look back on that place with fondness, but it helped create the person I am today.
It isn’t much but it is enough for me
It isn’t much but it is enough…
And it was enough. It had my cats, my books, my art supplies, a kettle and a sofa bed. I didn’t need much more. Yes, it would have been nice not to live above a drug dealer who would deal to most of the rest of the building. It would be nice if I didn’t come home after work one day to find someone had changed the locks for no reason (never did get to the bottom of that one). Yes, it would have been nice if someone didn’t keep pouring malt vinegar over one of the landings (was it cover the smell of something they were smoking? I really don’t understand that one). Yes, it would have been nice if my post wasn’t intercepted and ripped open with startling frequency. But it wasn’t homelessness. It was enough.
And when it’s cold outside I feel no fear!
Even in the winter storms, I am warmed by a small but stubborn fire
And there is no-where I would rather be
No-one should have to live the way I did in that building. But it could have been worse. And My House sums it up. It. Was. Enough. It was a bridge between homelessness and a home. And now I have all the things in those lyrics and more. Thank you to my past self for persevering and creating something out of that space. Thank you for paving the way for the life I have now. You did it. You survived. And you thrived.
