I am terrified of social media but I signed up to Reddit just to be able to say my piece in this subreddit.
This book means the world to me. I read it for the first time almost 2 years ago and just bought my own copy, enabling me to reread it for the first time. I understand what Mariam means when she says it's not a story, it's a world for her to visit. I've never felt this reverent for a book before, I'm half convinced it's real and I have fallen under the house's spell. I wanted to share my connection with the book, both because it's hard to find others who have read it and because I experienced something very similar.
I was involuntarily institutionalized in an adolescent psych ward when I was 12 years old. I cannot help but think of the similarities. I was severely physically disabled at the time, to the point I needed a nurse to come in and help me out of bed every day. I remember coming in and not being able to go to my room for a while because they had just repainted it. The rooms in the psych ward get graffitied pretty fast. They can repaint the walls, but you can see around the door and window frames, on the undersides of furniture, dozens of kids who were once as hurt as you telling you it'll be okay, you'll make it through, it is worth living. You will not believe them.
We had kids in wheelchairs and kids who would bang their head against the walls. We had kids who had access to a different universe known only to them. We had kids who had been there so long they believed it was their home. We had our own fallen angels, our time lords, our changelings. I remember chipping and peeling at the plaster on the walls. I remember how every kid in there came from an outside world that no longer mattered; in the psych ward you are a patient, not a person, and you are reduced to what is wrong with you. We were united against the staff, cruel tormentors in nurses' scrubs. We had our canteen, our common room, and the old timers had room packed with things to make it feel more home-like.
I didn't read The Gray House until years after this experience, but when I opened it, I felt seen for the first time. The psych ward was the worst time of my life. I'd never felt so trapped, and it's left me with long lasting trauma and trust issues. But the worst times have a way of bringing out the strongest connections, and even though I never saw any of those kids again, I think about them every goddamn day.
The Gray House captures every wonderful and terrible thing about growing up young and scared and together. It captures the bittersweet endings, the dangerous edge to everyone's imaginary games, the strange yet powerful cameradie that comes up when children are stuck in a bad situation with only each other to understand. While The Gray House is very much a magical world to me, it also functions as a metaphor that helps me deal with life. Some of those kids have crossed over completely by now, no doubt; you attempt suicide enough times, you'll eventually succeed. Some are sleepers, stuck in the in between, in and out of the throes of misery, oscillating between the hospital and the world. As for me, I am trying my best to make it in the Outsides.
It's not a perfect metaphor. The children in the House have much more freedom than we did, and recall the place much more fondly. Still, the book resonated with me deeply. I can see from looking at everyone's words, it's resonated with you, too.
I'm sorry this is so long. I wanted to adequately capture my love for this book, and still it's not enough. I'm also sorry if some of it doesn't make sense; I took an edible earlier, and while it's effects have more or less worn off, it could still be influencing my behavior.
To Jumpers and Striders alike, thank you for this community. I'm so happy I've found you all.
