Eric and I were in Japan over the holidays and my cousins needed a place to stay while they visited some family in the North East, so of course we offered to have them stay in our  apartment. When we got home, they were long gone, but the house was a complete mess. They had left behind jewelry and hairbands, there were sticky patches and crumbs on the floor, it was clear based on beds and blankets, that my cousins had brought along several uninvited guests. I felt so overwhelmed at the cleaning I needed to do, uncomfortable that my space was so dirty, I felt out of control, violated, that folks I didn’t know, hadn’t invited, had clearly been sleeping in my house.

As I tried to calm myself, it dawned on me:  The reason the place is such a mess, the reason there are other people’s belongings everywhere, the reason there were uninvited guests is quite simple –this house is not my own. If it were mine it wouldn’t be in a state I find so undesirable. If it were mine it wouldn’t, it couldn’t, contain items that were unwanted. Most of all though, if it were mine, how would it be possible for some rando, an uninvited stranger, to come along and use the house as they see fit? Something that anyone can use can’t possibly be uniquely mine.

I was angry with my cousins because they forced me to confront a reality I did not want to see, namely that I don’t own or control what I consider to be my own. I find other people’s invasions, their mess, so upsetting  because its in a space I somehow expect to be conforming to my will; in its conformity I find comfort and when it doesn’t conform my skin crawls. After all, if I can’t even be a master of what happens in my own home, what hope do I have to control my life and fate in the big wide world?

That last point really hit home, and I put the matter behind me. Until…

A few weeks later I was scheduled for dinner with a friend and she insisted on meeting me at my place beforehand because she wanted to see it. I thought it was a little odd when she started peeking in closets and opening closed doors, but she is someone with pretty low personal boundaries so I put it out of my mind quickly. After dinner, we were chatting and she invited herself to move in with me. She decided it would be a perfect plan as she works a lot, and Eric and I travel a lot, so no one would be around too much. Suddenly, I realize why she had been eyeing closets, like they were already hers, my head nearly popped off from anger. How can she just roll in and assert what is mine is/should be hers? Of course, like with my cousins, the answer was pretty plain: It isn’t actually mine at all.

But this time, I realized it was more than that. This time I realized the emotion I was feeling wasn’t just out of control, it was the feeling of being violated, of being disrespected.   After all, there are plenty of times I an happy to share what is mine –to make it unmine — when I take in friends in need, or lend what is precious to me. But when I do, I do it on my terms, I use what is mine as a symbol of my goodness and generosity. In the case of both my cousins and my friend, I saw their treatments of a  my space  as a medium/conduit for disrespecting me, for undervaluing the work I have put into  earning and  acquiring my belongings. In other words, it is someone else using what is mine as a symbol of my inferiority.

But here is the thing. Is a house a conduit for anything? Can it have some symbolic meaning in and of itself, outside of what I ascribe it? If it could, wouldn’t it always have the same meaning? How has the NY loft’s meaning changed so much — from the cozy nest from which to launch our NY adventure, to the massive mistake that proves my poor judgment?

Years ago, Mae Yo would frequently ask me, “what does Rupa do to humans?” But now, I  am starting to ask myself a different question: “What do I do to Rupa, how does my my imagination twist it and  transforms it into something other than what it is?”