Making Room

Tuesday Tidings #33: on rules, freedom and the choices that create space

It’s just past 8am. The sun streams across the backyard, all the way to garden bed underneath the cherry blossom tree near the back fence line. The tree’s blooms, long since faded, have been replaced by a lush green canopy. Bright yellow bags of compost cover most of the wide, deep patch of dry dirt. They mark the spot for the new flowerbed.

Despite the light breeze, it is hot. Especially in the sun. I can already feel a thin bead of sweat form at my hairline. The first step is to break up the hard, dry soil. It’s not a small task. Which is why I am glad to not be doing this alone. Next to me, without a word, Deedee drives the shovel into the ground. Slowly, methodically, she begins to break up the dirt.

Because she loves to garden as much as I do (she also loves to mow the lawn, something I do not enjoy), we are spending our day off together and creating a new flowerbed. And because she insisted, she is the one doing the digging, including the hole next to the relocated birdbath so I can plant the calla lily I brought home when I got the bags of compost.

She moves along, punching into the dirt, while I spread out the compost, rake through to blend with the small chunks of dirt, and prepare it for the wildflower seeds.

It is the epitome of teamwork.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. Deedee is 60 and I’m 52. She’s not my sister. She’s not a friend. She’s my roommate.

Deedee moved in just over two months ago in April. The weekend she moved in, I was in New York. This weekend is one of the first when we have both been home at the same time. Despite not being at home at the same time much since she moved in, we already have a natural groove together. We chit chat when she gets home from work, and sometimes eat dinner together—or next to each other. On Saturday, while I was out for a pool day at a friend’s house, she cleaned up parts of the basement (and even chased off a garden snake that was trapped in the storm door). While I handle the utilities, Deedee takes on projects like the garage, which has always had recycling piled up for weeks. Now it is not only organized but also clean. Not because I did any of that. Because she did. And more importantly: Not because I asked, demanded or expected her to do any of that. Because she wanted to do it. It brings her joy.

the new flower bed, with bird feeder, bird bath and calla lily plant. Wildflower seeds dispersed in the composted bed.

All of this has been the most unexpected, delightful surprise about having a roommate—another woman, slightly older than me, with whom I share my home and my space.

In great part, because anytime I seriously considered getting a roommate (as recently as last summer), I rejected it because I felt that it meant I’d failed. Six years after my divorce, on the cusp of turning 53, wasn’t I supposed to have a husband or at least a live-in boyfriend by now? Or, if not that, wasn’t I supposed to be proudly, staunchly single, come and go as I want, and prove (to others) that I didn’t need anyone—that I could carry the house, the yard, the garage, oh, the plumbing, all of it, alone? I mean, isn’t that the epitome of freedom? And isn’t that kind of freedom what I am supposed to want?

Oh, that’s it. I resisted the idea of a roommate because of the rules nobody wrote down, some assumed idea that someone (maybe me?) made up but which loom large in my mind (kind of like the rule I had about eating dinner alone in a restaurant—the horror! The shame!).

But here’s what’s actually true: my house is an asset. Renting a room in it is income. And income (that is not my savings account), at this point in my life (a middle-aged, one-woman-audio-visual department), is not a small thing. Needing that isn’t failure. It’s math. Besides, most of the time the house sits empty. It is un-used because I am not there. Which is why the pipes dry up. Or the guest toilet tank leaks. Letting it fall apart from underuse goes against every piece of love I have put into it.

This home that I renovated and the gardens I planted over time are a safe space. I designed it that way and cultivated in it the kind of safety I needed for myself so that it would be readily available to anyone who needs a safe place to be. Why not open it up to someone else to live in that safe space alongside with me?

Once I stopped treating the decision like a referendum on my worth or a measure of success or failure, I recognized it as a solution (for me and for someone else) that was put in my path…including for problems (like the plumbing) I did not even know I had. And as soon as I made that choice, almost instantly, everything shifted.

I didn’t just get help with rent. I didn’t just get help with all kinds of things around the house—mowing the lawn (which I genuinely don’t enjoy doing), tending the garden, organizing the garage, and cleaning up the basement. I got a friend to share the ups, the downs, and all the in-betweens of life as they happen, in real time.

It’s a partnership. Even if it doesn’t look like the one I thought I was supposed to have or the one I hope to one day have with someone else. Either way, I have it. And I have it with someone who wants to tend to this place, my place, our place, when I’m on the road tending to the space in which other women can share their stories. What a gift…and who knows what other surprises might, one day, arise from this experience.

post gardening with Deedee covered with dirt and getting other work done

It makes me think of all the different spaces (and ways) I was willing to show up in over the past month. It also brings up my conversation with Annie last week. Only unlike her, I didn’t need to build a new room. I just needed to stop insisting on holding the room I already had all by myself. Once I did, I opened up the room—not just in my house, but also in me.

That’s the thing about choices. They create space—in me, and for others. And in that space, I can enjoy my freedom, and feel at peace—whether I am at home or away.

How have you made space for someone, or something, you didn’t expect?

I would love to hear from you. Hit reply or leave a comment.

---

Tuesday Morning Meditation: 6.23.25

The greatest gift of freedom is to set aside the rules, expand my choices, and rest in the peace that comes with living in partnership—whatever it looks like.

Coming up:

Next week, the third episode of the series Becoming the Proof drops into the Stories That Sparkle podcast feed on Wednesday, July 1. I am joined by Megan Klein, founder of Little Saints (a non-alcoholic cocktails and spirits company) because she needed a room. Listen in next Wednesday to hear the full story.

Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to The Stories That Sparkle, like or comment on this post, and share with others. It goes a long way to support the work I do and helps me capture more women’s stories and amplify more women’s voices.

And, if you have a story you want to share, either as a written piece or as a guest on the podcast, this space is very much open to submissions.