An analogy taken from real life

In a process that is going much more quickly than my emotional growth and healing, we are replacing all the floors in the house. 

The house is a year older than I am, and maybe we have other similarities. However, they might finish today, and I certainly will not.

We are not doing the skilled work, but there has still been a lot for us to do. Everything needs to be moved away and moved back -- possibly with a few temporary moves in between -- for the floors to come up.

I have a few new bruises. I felt them before they appeared, but the one that really hurt took longer to appear than the other. I don't know why it was like that, but I could tell it was coming.

We are switching from mostly carpets to all vinyl plank. This is very practical with our penchant for taking in animals, including ones with certain problems.

It looks great, but there is some getting used to it, which we have barely started yet since everything is still in an uproar. One difference is that the sound reverberates more; the carpet dampened that some. It makes perfect sense but I had not thought of it before.

The contractors have had to remove all the carpet and padding, take care of any flooring issues underneath, and then install the planks. That part is done and now the baseboards are being applied, which also requires some removals and a lot of fitting.

This house is comparatively old, which means it has seen some wear. However, it was also built pretty sturdy. We have been pleasantly surprised to discover no dry rot. There was an area that was missing some boards underneath, apparently from when insulation was added. That took care of some creaking, but the biggest help for that was tightening loose boards, of which there were many. Still, the wood was solid; it just needed some reinforcement. 

There is so much garbage to haul away!

I also have been looking below and finding all sorts of things coming up, some with some pain (not always when and how I expect it). It really does make some things feel different, and maybe amplified.

The amazing thing is that I appear to be pretty sturdy. I am not sure where that came from.

A lot of garbage does come up.

And I will not be done tonight.

(I am aware of the C. S. Lewis analogy. It is more involved.)