Stripping wallpaper in your house is like peeling an onion—there are many layers and many tears. Each layer feels like an artifact of interior design history: there’s the bright flower borders, the more mild and tiny floral patterns, the country love-live-laugh style, and throw in some horses galloping over a river too.
The tears come during the laborious work of peeling layer after layer. The first layer is simply the front, then you must peel off the backings until you reach the final layer of backing that’s directly on the drywall (which you hope and pray was painted first, otherwise your drywall is ruined). The final backing only comes off with warm water, fabric softener, and a spatula.
Sometimes you’re lucky and it comes off in long strips. But more often than not, it comes off in tiny nicks that you will sweep up with a broom later (if they haven’t glued themselves to your floor first). But you’re not even finished once the wallpaper is off and shoved into garbage bags; now you must wash down all your walls to make sure no glue or paper remains behind that could glob-up your paint.
As I’m restarting my new life, a divorced woman with three children in tow, finding a new home and new love, there are layers I’m stripping away from my past. There are layers from my childhood (the daughter of divorced parents) and from my previous marriage. There are years of fighting, tense silences, and anxiety soaked into this wallpaper. These flowers and horses and country maxims I’m peeling off the walls hold memories in them—some good, some neutral, and some painful. I’m peeling away what my family doesn’t need, layer by layer, and there are tears to be shed as I do.
Memories live in us, some days being more awake and active than others. Stripping wallpaper tends to prod them from their slumber.
There are people being swept out among the debris, dust, and dirt. Their seats at our table will be carried out to the side of the road. This home, this cosmos I’m creating, will be a place of peace and safety for those I love—a place where we can be who we are and not fear it will be used against us, a place where people keep their promises, a place where truth and love will hang their hats.
These layers—the people in my life who have caused harm—come off with difficulty. It not only hurts the walls but also hurts me. It’s careful work, done with so much precision and thought beforehand.
There are parts of myself that need to be stripped away and forgiven. Like the outdated wallpaper, I have antiquated mechanisms I once built inside myself to cope and survive on a daily basis that no longer serve me: stuffing emotions, being always on the defense, looking for the hidden meaning in people’s words and actions. It’s time to strip what’s obsolete from my home, what no longer serves a function, and bring in new habits and practices that do.
Stripping wallpaper is no simple task. There will be sweat on our brows. There will be damage to be fixed once the wallpaper is torn off; drywall needs to be repaired before the fresh paint can be rolled on top. But all this reconstruction is worth it—beauty will be created from it. Something new, something better, something fresh will stand in its place. Even the smells will be different here now.
I’m leaving the bones, because there are good bones here to be built upon. There are things founded in me that wouldn’t be there without the upbringing I had, without the past I lived, that wouldn’t have made me the woman and mother I am. There are lessons I learned through the abuse I suffered and ways that Christ drew me nearer to him. I am not the same woman, mother, or partner I once was. All these I will keep and build upon as I rebuild a new life for my family.
I’m also bringing in the new. I’m carrying in new furniture, new sheets, new clothes, new habits, new routines, new rules, and new sayings. I’m rolling paint on the walls once covered in paper. Some things are likely damaged, but hopefully they will be replaced once we get our footing. We’re doing things differently.
My life has been torn apart and reworked, turned upside down and right side up again. I could be bitter about it. Why’d my life and my home have to go through so much reconstruction? Why did so many ugly, unhelpful layers of wallpaper get layered on these walls? Why was all this done to me? It’s time to choose peace with what’s been done, to strip what’s unlovely from my home and life, and step forward into the new morning God has given me.
My walls are being freshly painted, and I’m marveling in the beauty of it all being remade.
The featured image, “Cotswold Fern and Moss,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.
Lara d’Entremont is a mother and author. She is the author of A Mother Held: Essays on Motherhood and Anxiety. Lara writes stories for the young and old alike, always striving to share the light of hope in the darkest of places—whether it be essays for a new mom through postpartum depression or a novel for a child wondering if their art matters. She is a member of The Maker’s Project, and her work has appeared in Christianity Today, The Rabbit Room, Verily, and others.
You can learn more about her work at laradentremont.com.
Dear Lara,
This is a beautiful piece written in loss and hope. I have lived this. Your visual imagery of wallpaper layers offered such a brilliant perspective for me. “There are parts of myself that need to be stripped away and forgiven.” (But why are we reminded of these at 3:00 am?) Bringing in ‘the new’ is so healthy and you have my prayers that each day would reveal something of great joy. Hugs, dear fellow Cultivator.
Dear Lara,
This is a beautiful piece written in loss and hope. I have lived this. Your visual imagery of wallpaper layers offered such a brilliant perspective for me. “There are parts of myself that need to be stripped away and forgiven.” (But why are we reminded of these at 3:00 am?) Bringing in ‘the new’ is so healthy and you have my prayers that each day would reveal something of great joy. Hugs, dear fellow Cultivator.