I sit down (collapse?) heavily into my favourite leather couch. Unable to entirely set aside my obsessive tendencies, I carefully set down my glass of mineral water on the allotted coaster so I can find it again amid the wreckage of my messy, neglected home. My dwellings have long-learned to adjust to the ebb-and-flow of my life force. When I’m manic, the house is spotless, too nervous to permit a toast-crumb, as if anxiously awaiting the House and Home photographer. “Oh, no, we can’t have that. That will never do!” it tut-tuts as a rogue fruit-loop escapes over the edge of my son’s bowl of breakfast cereal. It hastens to clean the debris, lest it blight the house’s societal reputation amongst its peers.
When I’m depressed, the house-mood turns trailer-park. “Aaaaww, fuck it”, it drawls. “Who’s gonna notice? None of your appreciate anything I do around here anyway!”. I can almost see it reaching for a pack of ciggies and throwing back a beer as it disdainfully mourns its former beauty and promise, bemoaning all the other houses that done-it-wrong and heap judgment upon it.
So, despite being inadmissible as medical evidence, I adamantly maintain that my house is deeply in tune with my serotonin levels. My house is better able to comment on my mental and emotional health than any one of my loved ones…
I’ve a similaresque relationship to my surroundings. They certainly reflect how my life is going although I’m not sure I’ve figured out the pattern yet