Psychologists use the term “differentiation” or “differentiated” frequently. It is not easily defined and complex to understand. My paraphrase goes something like this: it is one’s ability to hold onto the best parts of oneself while staying connected to another in an intense and/or emotionally meaningful relationship without losing one’s self into the other and/or consuming the other into one’s self.
That is a bit heady (I understand…read it again if you need to). Typically, it is used to discuss the relationships of people. However, I’m having a tough time being differentiated from my house….here’s the deal:
Shannon and I are moving to Memphis. We put our house on the market last Thursday. We have had a boooooooatload of people come through (what else is there to do in Minnesnowta when it is -6˙ F)…thanks to modern technology which allows prospective buyers/realtors to leave comments for us to see (along with our realtor talking with those same realtors) we have read/heard some not nice things about our house. “too small”. “bad colors”. “ugly tile”. My initial/visceral response wants to fight/challenge/defend our house! We love it! We wouldn’t be leaving if not for an out of state move!!!
All that is to say that I was taking things personally and feeling people’s bad feelings towards my house as bad feelings towards me. But that is dumb. They don’t know me. And they don’t know my house either (not much anyway). Thus, I was feeling emotionally fused (another psychological term) with my house. I needed to get over it. So I did. I made a conscious decision to believe that it will sell and someone or some couple will love it. And that all people are different and they are entitled to their opinions and they don’t have to like my house. It says nothing about their feelings/thoughts for me and/or the reality of the greatness of my house. My house doesn’t need me to defend it. It can do that on its own.
This leads me to think of several different strands of continued thought:
1. What other inanimate objects do we get emotionally fused with?
2. Has anyone else sold a house and wanted to personally tell prospective buyers how great it is?
3. A house is more than the size of rooms, color of walls, and type of siding…this house is mostly about the first 5 years of our marriage and all the up/downs that went along with it. We love this house (queue sappy music).
4. I'm working from home. I obviously have issues with this and have too much time to ramble psychological/philosophical thoughts about a dumb house...
(it looks better in summer/fall with green leaves, bushes, plants...but this is all I had at the moment)
