I Wanted to Have a Bigger House

I WANTED TO HAVE A BIGGER HOUSE

 

I wanted to have a bigger house.  I can’t quit explain why, but everytime we all rush about to the toilet in the morning, I just knew I wanted to have a bigger house.

 

And wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a lot more space for dancing and walking about?  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a larger area for more home furniture?  Sometimes we buy home appliances and when we get home, we just don’t know how we’d arrange everything so they could all fit in our house.

 

Sometimes also, especially when I’m in a hurry, I couldn’t help but bump into this and bump into that, so that whenever you see me with bruises all over, you can be sure it’s not because somebody beat me or I have leukemia.

 

Late at night, I sure wished I could have my own room where I can sleep away from the noises which can’t help but reach my eardrums.  My family, you see, is a lover of music.  And they derive much satisfaction listening to the radio as they try to fall asleep.

 

Aside from which, a bigger house would mean that I can go to my own room whenever I want to and not wait until my younger sister is finished playing basketball.  It would mean being able to listen to my favorite radio program while the rest of the family watches tv.

 

I remember the time when we celebrated my college graduation and invited my classmates over.  I thought I only had a few classmates, yet when they all came, there seems to be people all over the house.  Some are seated well, some are lined up the stairs, while some are already at my grandma’s house!  Oh, can’t I have a bigger house?

 

Years went by and the stars above must have heard my wish.  We moved to a bigger house in a fine neighborhood, somewhere were gardeners and maids seem to have all those big houses for themselves.  This time, we all have our separate rooms, with separate toilets.  We have a vast living room and even a music room upstairs.  The floor area is large so we can all go ballroom dancing without bumping into karaokes and television sets.

 

Yet day by day, I noticed something mysterious about this house.  It seems like it’s becoming bigger everyday.  It’s becoming much bigger that one day, I knew I can even get lost in it!

 

Lately though, I can hardly see my sister play basketball.  And we seldom watch tv together now.  Sometimes we’re just in our own rooms doing our own things.  I’m glad to have rested my eardrums, but bored with the empty quietness around.  We don’t meet so often in the morning now, unlike when we only had one comfort room.  And we rarely bump into each other like we used to.

 

There’s a lot more space now for parties and the like.  But what good is a dance floor without the feet of dancers?  I thought I’d have more comfortable visitors, yet everybody seems too busy now to see each other, more so, to have time to gather around and talk.

 

I sure miss my small house where we have all the chance to see each other.  I sure miss the bumps and the bruises, the noise and the crowd.  I miss the way people share whatever small space they have and the way people care for others waiting in line.

 

Maybe I just wished for the wrong thing.  Maybe I shouldn’t have wished for a bigger house.  I could have wished for bigger hearts to love one another, bigger mind to understand, bigger patience to wait and bigger unselfishness to share.  I could have wished for bigger things, you know.  But I wanted to have a bigger house.

 

The above essay was composed by the author, Jocelyn Soriano.  You are free to republish/ distribute this article as long as proper citation is made on the author and on the website itakeoffthemask.com

 

 

Check Jocelyn's books:

"Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief", "Mend My Broken Heart", "Questions to God", "To Love an Invisible God", "Defending My Catholic Faith", and more - click here.

(You may freely quote excerpts from this website as long as due credit is given to author Jocelyn Soriano and the website itakeoffthemask.com)