The most essential room in my house is one I rarely enter.
Tucked above the garage is a slope-ceilinged boy cave carpeted in Legos and crammed with cast-off furniture. In the corner, near the room's single window, is the discarded bucket seat from an old Ford Bronco. My husband bolted it to a base, attached a steering wheel and rigged the whole thing up as the centerpiece of our sons' favorite racing game.
On the other end of the room is the game table my mom got them for Christmas. Pool on one side, flip it over and air hockey on the other; ping-pong if they want to swap out the tops. Any time their friends come over, they all disappear into the playroom, and the roar of that racing game vibrates through the walls, along with the shouts and hoots that comprise boy-type communication.
A few years ago, when I hired a wonderful woman to clean my house every other week, I showed her all around my simple, single-story home and we chatted about what she would do and how long it would take.
"So is this it?" she asked.
"Well," I said, glancing toward the door that conceals the stairs, "there's one room upstairs ... but you don't want to go up there."
I have told them 6,875 times that they can't take food or drinks up there. They do it anyway. But I pretend not to know because arguing bores me, and I'm not planning to go up there again until they move out and I convert it to my yoga studio. So things are probably ... growing up there. But what I pretend not to know can't hurt me.
When I had my impossibly sweet babies, I did not really process the idea that they would become adolescent boys and that I would still have to live with them. You guys, a 43-year-old woman has no business living with adolescent boys. They should have their own house and live very nearby in case of an emergency. But since I can't afford that arrangement (and maybe there are laws against it?), we have the playroom.
"You know, this house really would not be big enough if it weren't for the playroom," my mother occasionally says.
"Please, please go upstairs," I beg as they roll through the living room, shrieking and wrestling and terrifying my ancient cat. During most seasons, I open the front door and let them roll right out, turning the lock behind them. In winter, the playroom becomes critical to my survival.
My mother tells me that one day I will miss having my boys at home -- that I'll long for these years of disorder and din. Sounds unlikely, but I guess it could be true.
Until then, however, the grubbiest, most chaotic room in the house is the space that really makes all this togetherness possible.
Contact Mary Fortune at thirtytensomething.blogspot.com