The Break-In

It’s somewhat ironic that the day I start writing about a sense of place is the day my house is broken into. My roommate called to let me know that her husband (my other roommate) had arrived home to find the front door ajar, with its century-old beveled glass busted through. He called the police, and they went through the house. The intruder basically took what he could carry and fled out the back door. I arrived home shortly after and spoke to the last cop to leave. He said that it looked random, and that this wasn’t part of any string of neighborhood robberies. Basically, we were just the wrong house at the wrong time.

There were glass shards scattered throughout the entry, evidence the intruder used blunt force to bust through the half-inch pane. The rest of the house looked normal, until I got to the bedrooms. My roommates’ dresser drawers were dumped; clothing and jewelry were tossed on the bed. My room, which is upstairs, was the same. A candy dish of random earrings, batteries and hardware was spread on my floor. A basket of hair products and lotions was overturned. A drawer with boxes of costume jewelry was awry.

But nothing was gone. Even my ipod and camera — which were in plain sight — were untouched. (Thank God that I had taken my laptop with me today; I had planned to write a paper for class.) My roommates had two old, rarely used laptops and two rings taken, but other things of value were blatantly overlooked. It feels so bizarre.

It didn’t take us long to be giggling about how disappointed the thief must have been; how unrewarding to break into the house of 20-somethings! We don’t even have a television, and he obviously deemed our stereo of little value.

However, as we described the damage to the next-door neighbor, she sighed, and said, “Then you were completely violated.” Another friend called and said, “You must feel so violated.” And my mom said the same thing.

Violated.

Yeah, I guess. As I type this while sitting on my bed, it’s weird to think about someone being in this room only hours ago, rifling through my drawers, intending to steel something from me. I mean, he saw my rumpled quilts, and my underwear, and my messy desk. He ransacked a space that is mine, this little alcove in the top half-story of a 1920s bungalow.

But “violated” seems to suggest a space has been intruded so deeply that it is forever altered. That it was pillaged beyond recovery. That it has lost its feeling of safety.

And this place hasn’t.

I will sleep well tonight, after I finish the homework that’s been pushed aside as I clean up the mess. I don’t think anyone will slice through the tape that’s holding our door’s jagged window together. I may hide my laptop when I’m at work from now on, but I don’t feel powerless.
I wonder what my reaction says to my sense of this place — if it is a healthy response to a place where I feel safe, despite the break-in, or if it reflects the fact that this is merely a place I’m currently renting, that that I’ve never intended to make this my dwelling for more than a few years.

Maybe it will become clear to me as time goes on. Right now I’m just hoping we can make that damaged Victorian door as beautiful as it once was.