When I started to take out the floor, the pantry, and the rotten beaver board in my kitchen I found many presents. Two pennies from the 60s. A piece of yardstick from the 60s used to shim up the counter. Tupperware popsicle set pieces from the 70s. And in the wall-the only insulation- were these socks from the 1940s. They are quite adorable, yes. I will use a piece of each of them in my eventual shadow box for this house. But really. There wasn’t much charm in dismantling my kitchen.

It’s grody. I am lucky it isn’t full of food particles and mouse poop, so I should just shut it. I think I was exceptionally worn out from the bedroom remodel, so taking floors out of the kitchen just exhausted me.

It was a layer of 70s carpet, then a layer of disintegrated carpet padding that had turned to dust. Then 7, 436 nails-some removed and some still in the wood-and two to four layers of linoleum in places.

Now I think I’m possibly staring at the actual subfloor to my house. So today I have to go under the house into the crazy earth cellar/basement and shine light up there and have Liam tell me if he sees it. That’s my only plan so far.

There’s a little warning bell ringing far off and getting closer that perhapsmaybeprobably my house is going to be exceptionally cold in winter. I don’t have anything I can do about it besides have my plumber put in the new high altitude gas wall furnace. But everyone keeps telling me we can be 20 below here for over a month and lose electricity.

I’m not panicking. I’m not panicking. I will be fine.

It’s a metaphor for working on our own self-development, isn’t it. Sometimes we find things that are beautiful and have been waiting to be uncovered for years. Sometimes when we peel off those layers of self-protection and trauma wounds and bad habits and regretful actions from the past we find oil spills and layers of disgusting things to throw away. Sometimes there are prizes like from a kid’s meal, and sometimes there are things you thought you threw away, or at least buried deep to never come out again. And here they are looking at you, like old socks in the walls or pieces of tupperware hidden behind a cabinet for 30 years. I opened Pandora’s box and it cannot be closed up again.