King of the Castle, or Pauper in the Poorhouse?
by Eric Payne
Over a year ago my wife and I moved into a tiny two-bedroom apartment as a temporary resting place while we shopped for a house for our new family. I was sitting pretty on the earnings from a property I flipped and we figured it would be no time before our family of four was spread out in a home. Because our move was only temporary we treated it as nothing special. Very soon thereafter we, ourselves, began to feel like nothing special. This feeling began to grow until our home life became completely uncomfortable and filled with vast and various complaints from us about our quality of life. And when our temporary move took an unexpected turn to semi-permanent, things got ugly.
Our first winter together under the same roof as a married couple was a miserable one. Making matters worse, we had intermittent heat on below zero days, for starters. Dealing with this was especially difficult for me because prior to this move I’ve lived my life making the place where I sleep, home in every sense of the word. It’s something I’ve insisted upon for myself since leaving my parents’ nest in Chicago and settling in New York. But this time it wasn’t working. Interestingly, I noticed that the kids didn’t seem to mind. With them as our first priority, they lacked nothing.
One day, my wife shared with me an exchange she had with our landlord. Their discussion caused her to state, “I pay rent to live like a squatter in a tenement.” These words stayed with me long after she said them until it finally dawned on me: Aside from the physical issues with our place, we were squatters in a tenement because we were in fact squatting — in thought and deed. Previous to moving into this place, home had always been my haven because I had always viewed and treated my places this way. During this entire experience, our children had been our only priority. How my wife and I lived hadn’t even been a consideration as we were caught up in waiting until we got our house.
For the past few months I’ve come to love our place because it is now home. It is still the tiny temporary dwelling that contains my family until we find a permanent homestead, but home is what and where you make it. It begins with us and will travel along with us when we eventually move into our house. When it snows, I grab a shovel and clean the walk. If our trash cans are in the middle of the street after the garbage men come, I put them back on the curb. Why? Because my landlord doesn’t live here, I do. I’ve bought a few new pieces of furniture, reconfigured the layout of some of our rooms and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. I now have my haven — a place where I’m proud and happy to be. I am the king of my castle and my wife is my queen.
Even in the worst of times, otherwise known as this economy, the glass is only half-empty if you choose to see it that way. Through work and faith, my glass is full. This applies not only to apartments and houses, but to life in general.
Are you the king or queen of your castle? Or are you a pauper in the poorhouse? It’s your decision.
Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Eric Payne lives with his wife and kids just outside of New York City, where he works in the non-profit sector. He writes about married life and fatherhood at MakesMeWannaHoller.com and is the author of I See Through Eyes, a book of poetry and short stories.
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