Creating a life

This feels familiar.  I'm up early, hours before I need to be, and I'm in front of my computer.  This is an old memory that inhabits my muscles as well as my mind.  It feels right.  This is a part of my life that I'm awkwardly reclaiming.

How do I describe my life now?  I'm living in a tiny apartment.  It's 900 square feet, less than half the size of my old house.  One of my joys has been having the chance to decorate. I have no talent for this.  I'm just not a visually oriented person.  Thankfully, my sister is.  She's also exceptionally generous and understands the importance of a nurturing environment.  She'd never put it in those words.  She just understands it instinctively and has the talent to create it.

When I moved in, I had to step over boxes and create a path to even get to the bathroom.  I had planned to work slowly, find a place for one box at a time.  That just wasn't going to happen.  My sister, my oldest friend, and my daughter all descended on this place individually, and within a week, all the boxes were unpacked, furniture had been arranged, and I had a functional kitchen. My friend and my daughter are absolute masters of the small space, S, because she has so much to fit into her home, and C., because college students have to master that art.

Then my sister took over.  She had already decided that it was important for this to feel like home, and she took me shopping.  Since I'd just begun work, I didn't have the money to do more then keep gas in my car and buy groceries, but that didn't matter.  She bought sheets, a bed spread, curtains and a curtain rod, lamps and a few smaller accessories to help pull things together.  She'd already given me a couch she no longer used, a bed (I just couldn't stand sleeping in the bed my husband and I shared for so long), and her old TV

So, with family and friends, with things old and new, with understanding, and generosity, this little apartment is a home that I really do love.  I think of it as my little nest, and it does feel like home.