The Freezer in the Bedroom

 

As a kid, once upon a time, my childhood bedroom was upstairs, in our nearly one- hundred- year- old, poorly insulated house. Summers were tropical rainforests, complete with Minnesota mosquitoes, keeping me awake. Winters were Arctic, requiring multiple comforters at night. Long story short: it became next to impossible for me to sleep up there, in my baby blue- painted, but unhabitable, childhood bedroom.

Eventually, I slept in the living room, on the pull-out couch.

Fortunately, around the age of eleven, my family finally decided to replace the house’s deteriorating porch with the new addition promise of a “family room” and…drum roll please… a newer childhood bedroom for me.

Granted, it was not painted baby blue; wood paneling was its motif. And, it was a much smaller square room, as opposed to the vast pizza oven/deep freeze as my first upstairs bedroom.

Compromise, okay. I’d deal with it.

At least I got my own room, better insulated, a place I could really sleep in and await my joyous adolescent years (can you hear my sarcasm?).

So, after a three-month summer vacation, spent tearing off the old, replacing it with the new, finally, I had my small square bedroom. I was giddy. I walked into the empty space, imagining where I’d place my bed, dresser and vanity.

But before I could get any of my stuff in, furniture or stuffed animals, my family shoved a gigantic meat freezer along one entire wall of my bedroom.

That’s right, I said meat freezer, one of those humungous, topaz-colored models that looked like a full-on coffin. I think you could probably stick a full-grown man in that sucker, without needing to do any dismembering.

Handy.

And my family just assumed (you know what they say about assume) that I would have no issue with this arrangement. I didn’t have room for some of my bedroom furniture, but hey, I should be grateful to just get a bedroom, right?

I said that to my eleven-year-old self, trying to convince her this freezer was not encroaching on my development in any way. No biggie. I still had my little haven where I could write, read, draw, listen to music and enter adolescence.

Let’s get the show on the road!

Only, the show was frequently interrupted by a family member entering my room to extract some frozen meat from my room.

Oh, Rib-eye tonight, huh?

Meanwhile, I turned twelve. Then thirteen.

Years of lunches and dinners brought about by people barging into my room, opening the freezer coffin lid, chilling the room for about ten minutes after it was closed, and feeling like my privacy was invaded. My boundaries of separateness as a budding person were treated as nonexistent. After all, I should be grateful to have a room.

This eight-foot freezer is no problem; it’s not an issue.

But, as a feisty thirteen-year-old, I started voicing (whining) my displeasure, attempting to reason with certain family members, trying to negotiate a relocation for this meat freezer. I was growing up, getting bigger, needing more space and privacy.

Eventually, my negotiating (whining) won out. It was finally decided that this large monster would be moved to the garage, where, in my opinion, it should have resided the entire time. We also had a basement with plenty of space to inhabit the freezer.

Really, why did it have to land in my small bedroom, in the first place?

Answer? Because it was convenient.

And here, I learned a lesson about weak and disrespected boundaries of what is and is not allowed and enforced.

It was simply more convenient to place the freezer in my bedroom. No one needed to go downstairs, in the dingy basement to get the wrapped meat. No one needed to go outside to the garage.

Just easy- peasy. Get it from Sheryle’s room. She doesn’t mind. It’s no big deal.

And besides, the freezer was once kept on the old porch. It’s the way things have always been done. Why change?

Recognizing any of the dysfunctional patterns, trampled boundaries or harmful assumptions within you own life?

Why am I harping about this freezer, years later? Why can’t I get over it, as many people are wont to say?

Because, sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar. Sometimes a freezer is not just a freezer.

This large behemoth was a testament to how there was a resistance to change, to respecting boundaries and to respecting privacy, as harsh as it sounds. My family did not see me as a separate individual who needed time, space and privacy to grow. Convenience and attachment to the familiar status quo were more important than acknowledging that me, as a child, had a right to develop and discover myself without encroachment.

To me, subjectively, that freezer encroached on my time, space and privacy. No one else saw it as an issue, because it was not an issue to them.

Silly, blown out of proportion, perhaps? Well, hang on. Because, again, the object, any potential object, is not just a neutral object. It is a representation to you, to me. And, even if it is that representation to only you or me, it’s still, nonetheless, valid.

It often, however, taps into the greater messages surrounding autonomy, self-esteem, boundaries, people pleasing and any number of mistaken thoughts and beliefs.

What is that for you? What is your freezer?

Like I said, I negotiated the freezer’s removal from my small bedroom. By age fourteen, my room was freezer-free. However, the issues, the messages and the refusal to allow me to be me were still in place.

And here I slammed head-on into an ugly reality many of us confront when it comes to our family dynamics: there can exist both an inability and an unwillingness for some individuals to view us with the respect, dignity and healthy treatment we inherently deserve. We need to face that and deal with how things are.

And then we need to make a choice. How will you and I treat ourselves, freezer or no freezer, metaphorically speaking?

We can often get talked out the validity of our experiences, dismissed as being too sensitive, taking things too seriously, blah, blah, blah. You’ve heard the criticisms in your own life, right?

If it’s a problem, an issue, a wound for you, that’s legitimate. If you feel a violation, that is valid and needs addressing.

If individuals refuse to acknowledge and validate what is bothering you, then you, all by yourself, need to come to terms with it for yourself.

Find your own personal meaning. And, while you are doing so, dare to embrace the real, eternal truth: you are worth being seen, heard, loved and valued. Don’t let anything convince you otherwise.

So, yes, I’ve been learning all about what are my personal feelings and boundaries. I am learning about my individual value.

All this from a freezer in a bedroom?

Yes, all this from a freezer in a bedroom.

Copyright © 2021 by Sheryle Cruse