I remembered what it feels like to love.
Who would’ve thought my marriage would come back to life… after a renovation? I thought we’d forgotten how to feel. Sixteen years of marriage, after all. You know how it is—like an old jumper: comfortable, familiar, only it doesn’t keep you warm anymore.
James and I had settled into predictability: work, dinner, the occasional late-night murmur before bed. We didn’t argue, didn’t hash things out—just existed. Steady. Quiet. Like family, but without the fire. Sometimes, it felt like we were two trees growing side by side: roots tangled beneath the soil, branches stretching in opposite directions.
Then the renovations began.
We didn’t start them lightly. Our son, Oliver, had left for summer camp by the seaside—his first time away. “Mum, I’m not a kid anymore!” he’d declared, shoving light-up trainers into his suitcase. James and I stood on the platform, waving at the train until it disappeared. When we stepped back into our empty flat, we realised—it was just us now, and these walls that remembered who we used to be.
To speed things up, we rented a cramped studio while strangers took over our home—loud, sweaty men with paint-stained clothes. Among them was Stuart.
Tall, rough hands, cold eyes. He reminded me of James in his younger days—the voice, the way he squinted when thinking. But where James spoke softly, never raising his voice even in anger, Stuart shouted at his wife over the phone loud enough to make me wince.
I’d never heard a man speak to a woman like that—the mother of his children. Hissing through his teeth as if she owed him something. Then I found out he had a mistress.
One day, I went back for forgotten blueprints and caught him in the living room with a young girl. She giggled as he told a crass joke, then he grabbed her waist and pinned her against the unpainted wall.
And suddenly, I was afraid.
Not for her—for me.
What if James had some silly girl like that somewhere, thrilled by his attention like a stray crumb of affection? What if he, too, had been living two lives while I was the last to know?
That evening, I studied James over dinner, searching his eyes for indifference, exhaustion—any sign he wanted to escape. Then he looked at me and asked,
“You holding up alright with all this chaos?”
Meanwhile, the workmen stripped the old wallpaper in our flat, revealing traces of our early years. A faded pink stain—from our housewarming, tipsy on champagne. He’d lifted me up, I’d shrieked, and the bottle slipped, splashing the wall.
Dents from nails—remnants of the shelf James spent a weekend building while I was away. “Don’t come in!” he’d shouted from behind the door as I laughed and stomped in mock impatience. Crooked, but it lasted a decade.
Three days later, we went wallpaper shopping.
James, who usually left decisions to me, suddenly came alive. He scrutinised shades, asked, “Which do you prefer?” No rush, no penny-pinching—he was choosing. For us. For our home. His fingers traced textures before he looked at me.
“D’you reckon this pearl finish will catch the light?”
When we reached the bedroom designs, he reached for pale blue with a faint silver filigree.
“Like that hotel in Cornwall,” he murmured.
I caught my breath. Years before our wedding, on our first holiday together, we’d stayed up all night on the balcony listening to the sea. The walls were that exact shade.
Later, in the furniture shop, he insisted on a high-backed armchair—“so you can read with proper light.”
“How’d you know I’d want that?” I asked.
“I’ve lived with you sixteen years,” he smirked. “Should’ve picked up something by now.”
No irritation—just quiet warmth. The kind from our beginning. And then, I understood—he still loved me. It had just gotten buried under routine, under days that blurred together.
But it was never gone.
“Let’s hang the bedroom wallpaper ourselves,” James said unexpectedly near the end.
I hesitated.
“You hate wallpapering.”
“Hated it,” he grinned. “Put up with it for our first flat, remember?”
Yes, beneath the years, beneath the weight of habit, that same man still existed—the one who’d carried coffee across town in a thermos. We’d just forgotten where we’d tucked each other away.
Now, we stood in the bedroom, and James, just like years ago, mixed up the top and bottom.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, “why do they always look the same?”
I laughed, handing him a fresh sheet. July rain pattered outside; memories crowded my head. Painting our first flat, his palm smearing wet paint. Sneaking into my childhood home to redo my old room while I was at uni.
“Needs to be done by the 25th,” I said. “Oliver comes back.”
James nodded, then took my glue-smeared hand.
“Remember doing his classroom in Year One?”
As if I could forget. Responsible parents of a six-year-old, we volunteered to wallpaper his class. The walls had been painted—we didn’t realise the paint had to be stripped first. By morning, every strip had peeled off. We spent hours scraping and redoing it.
“Proper messed that up,” I smiled, spreading paste.
James huffed.
“You swore you’d never—”
”—and yet, here we are,” I finished.
His hands—rougher now—smoothed each seam with practised care.
“Better not peel this time,” he mumbled, and we both winced at the memory.
“We’re experts now,” I teased.
As he pressed the last corner into place, it hit me—this wasn’t just a renovation. We were preparing the house for our growing son’s return. And ourselves—for a new chapter where we’d be alone together, but different.
Somewhere beyond the window, summer unfolded. Somewhere, a train carried our boy home. And here we were, surrounded by paint tins and memories, relearning how to be just husband and wife.
But this wallpaper was different. Just like us. It stuck—no peeling. Like our imperfect, time-tested love, hidden under layers of routine, then resurfacing, like the marks on these walls bearing witness to our story.
Now, we wait for the renovations to finish. Wait, to start again.
New walls. Same old love.
Maybe this is life—thinking everything’s been torn down, then painstakingly piecing it back together. And beneath the plaster, those same people still live—the ones who once believed they could handle anything.
Now, I finally understand those old lyrics:
*All will pass, joy and sorrow, too,*
*That’s the way the world spins through.*
*All will pass—just hold onto this:*
*Love won’t leave. Love persists.*
