We bought a house. I don’t love it. I feel guilty and embarrassed about this fact. Who has the privilege of buying a house and feels wonky about it? I do. I feel like an asshole about it. It doesn’t add up in my head; but math always made me cry.
The thing is, if you read last weeks post you know we needed to find a place to live very very much. It has been four months since we left California making our way to Minnesota. Wendy Darling, our little Winnebago Brave, rumbling and limping across the country and the finish line. Yes, six weeks of that time was travel and lovely, but still, that’s a long time to be wearing shoes when you shower, hoarding quarters for laundry, and hand washing dishes when your children eat like hobbits - second and third breakfasts on the regular.
I know you all subscribe and watch those road families or off grid folks making dinner on their hot plates or over open fires, hiking up mountains, skinny dipping with their white husky’s in mountain streams. Well, I do too, and it looks glorious but I found what was true for me folks (experience is the best teacher) and that is, that living in an RV, for more than six weeks messes me up real good. I don’t know why this is the cut off? but it is. Six weeks of travel and adventure is amazing. After which, I am left untethered and not in a nice enlightened way (i’ve read the untethered soul, thank you very much). In a hissing and spitting and falling to pieces way (again, please reference last weeks post). I need a routine, a place to receive mail and a freaking library card (I missed the library so much!). These things allow me to hold conversations and care a little bit about what i’m making for dinner. I can watch all these road families and nomads now, nod and smile, and whisper “nope, not for me lovies, but you do you.” Even Jane Goodall slept in the same tent, in the same place every night; she had a table which did not need to be turned into a bed.
We needed a house! We found a house! And yet, it hasn’t felt great (I mean moving is miserable but still), something has been off in my calculations. Literally I thought this would work like a math equation. When we found a place (THE place) to live, it would all be very nice and tidy, equaling the sum of everything over the past year and a half; all the things we quit, the fears, the risks, the patience, the faith, the leaping, all the aha found what was true right there (finger in the air! Eureka!) moments. And the sum would be glorious. It would be simple and elegant; this plus this, plus this, equals joy and beauty and a feeling of YES. But more importantly I thought I’d feel relief.
Sometimes, unfortunately you realize the equation is missing something half way through (or most of the way through), you’re not sure what, and you have to go back to the drawing board rewrite almost everything, do some long, new math, which means you’ll need a second piece of paper and have to keep working at it if you’re going to get a final answer that makes any kind of sense. You may need to take a snack break and go for a walk to keep from crying. Because there’s a y in there, which does not equal 42.
It’s a nice house. It’s just not THE house I was expecting. Kind of like when you find yourself dating someone who’s not really your type, even your friends are scratching their heads and biting their tongues, but you tell yourself, it’s cool ya know, you’re playing outside your wheelhouse, trying new things. But deep down you’re tired of dating and you know they’re not the one…and this bums you out. You’re totally open to falling in love forever, who wouldn’t be, but you just don’t see it happening because they love paisley (aka the image of an amoeba often found on chairs), lick their fingers while eating, or are inexplicably unkind to the waiter at lunch. And no one in their right mind should have children with a person who gets mean over being served the wrong iced tea. There's a lot to love about them and you don’t want to leave (yet), because they also like reading Salinger’s Teddy out loud to you on long roadtrips, but you’re just not sure how long you’ll stay.
I’m not ungrateful though. I”m not that awful. I am in appreciation for ALL the things living in a house, which doesn’t roll down the road provides. Things can be out! Things can be out on counters AND you don’t have to remember you put them there (because you’ll have to put them away later) for fear of them falling over when you go roaring and swaying down the road. Everything can sit still for a while without the risk of breaking; my partner, my children, the piano, the vase I painted when I was 18 on the San Juan Islands.
But why did we buy a house we don’t love? And why is this uncomfortable? I have a feeling ego may be involved (ya think?). But, also my friends I knew we couldn’t keep living in the RV. That had revealed itself quite clearly. We were looking at a looming winter. We were talking about renting. Then I spoke to a friend who had done something similar, moved to Eugene Oregon, and she shared they had bought an affordable investment house and then looked around for almost three years til they found their farm. In our deep hearts we kept getting excited when we would see houses on land for sale…but we hadn’t found anything that felt right in our price range. My friend’s story, as most stories do, whispered of permission. Permission to pause. I should know, slowing down, stopping, holding just one darn second is always allowed; but the problem is this always makes me feel like I’m losing the race (which I’m not even trying to run anymore, hello this whole Sub is about that, but it’s so deeply engrained via culture that I feel it anyway). Practically speaking pausing also feels expensive and exhausting therefore frustrating. There’s also the fact that I really hate moving and would like to not do it again for a good long while. Add onto that (there’s the math again) the panic that I won’t find it, have it, figured out in time for my oldest to enjoy it…who is, for some damn reason, getting older every year…her childhood moving by in a blurr of travel and adventure…not necessarily a bad thing. But I want her to remember the place she grew up in with fondness. This is tied directly to the fact, that as a young child my family moved every single year, sometimes never finishing unpacking. The misery level was high, due to a number of other delightful factors, but primarily because my father could not keep a job and was certifiably insane.
So we started to look, not for a house we loved, but for a house that would work, would be affordable (code; not take all our money) and hopefully a good investment. Something we could live in for a few years while we catch our breath and then rent out later.. Even just writing that phrase, a few years, my stomach did a flip flop. Ugh, I am not a patient person!!! Waiting makes me itchy!! I wanted this hunting for a home to be over. But also, I was ready to be living a life I loved, in a house I loved. Not too much to ask right? Well, it might be if the interest rates are at 8.2%
That said, I’ve decided anytime you feel this desire for something you’ve been called towards, to in fact be over, it’s just because you’re tired and you gasp! you need to rest… because of course It’s never really over babe. While living, you will always be figuring it out, if you’re lucky. And that’s more than ok even if it feels squirmy. We all know when you’re biting your lip, nodding that you understand, when you don’t understand, and beginning to sob in that hiccuping way you need to leave math class; just step out, go the nurses office and try again tomorrow. We’ve all have bad days, bad years, sometimes on the way towards something great, and we’ve all needed to pause when we’re not making sense anymore. Deep breaths. Pretend my fingers are candles and blow them out. It’s going to be fine. Breathe in and out.
I had been pushing, pushing, pushing towards an answer since we landed here in Minnesota. Searching, a bit hysterically, for a home that felt right; very much feeling the need to hurry up and figure it out. And all this pushing wasn’t working. I knew it wasn’t working but my lovely culture brain kept arguing with me declaring if I drove more hours and drank more coffee and ate more blueberry muffins we’d find it! Instead my sciatica was raging, I wasn’t sleeping (again), and I had a rash from the gluten. All signs which were vehemently pointing me away from pushing and towards pausing….to which I have now begrudgingly surrendered.
So I found this little blue house, and it was a solid house, didn’t need a lot of work, was in our price range (well, sorta, we still overpaid because that’s what’s happening everywhere right now) and it was in a nice neighborhood. All nice. But even with all these very sensible and reasonable reasons for choosing it, and all the appreciation pieces, the truth is…and this is the reason I’m telling you all of this because it’s messy…the icky truth is I felt flat, meh, kinda childish in a private and whiney way…I thought there would be PIE and this is a cookie! You’re still getting a cookie darling. Sheesh. Maybe there will be pie at the next party…for now let’s just appreciate that there are even oatmeal chocolate chip cookies available. This is the kind of conversation you might overhear at a picnic. A mother explaining, the injustice of the desert of their preference not being available, to their three year old. We want what we want (or we don’t even know what we want, because culture fog, but it’s definitely not this) and then of course sometimes we only have what’s available. Also, it’s nice to even be at a party, eating a cookie someone else brought. Still you feel let down. Even while stuffing a third cookie into your mouth, and asking if that one is peanut butter? You still feel disappointed somehow. Because it’s not pie. And pie is amazing. You thought there would be pie. That’s why you came in the first place.
The issue is of course, that it’s not so much about the house. It is and it isn’t. It’s amazing how the structure and aesthetics of something can feel so personal, the brown tiles in the bathrooms of this house feels like an assault every time I see them. The trappings matter but they don’t. Because of course in the end it’s the life you’re living in the house, or outside of it, that makes or breaks you. Now, does that mean i’m not going to keep looking for a house I love? Nope. I’m still staring at the whiteboard of my life. My fingers are all blue from erasing (quitting) stuff that doesn’t work and I have a mild headache from squinting at the figures. Stepping back helps. Drawing little cats in the corner also helps. Realizing the things I value are closer to me than they ever have been; my children, my time, my attention.
My oldest and I were working on estimates in Math yesterday. Estimating sums to the ten thousands place and it wasn’t landing well. But what is the right answer? she kept asking exasperated. There is no one right answer, you get to make a good guess, I told her. You get to make a guess as to what will get you closest to the right number. This made her angry and I was right there with her. I had to show her (and myself), in print where in the teacher’s guide it clearly said, answers may vary.
Answers may vary my friends. Along the way. There is a lot of very.
We’ve unpacked our butterfly wings and kaleidoscopes. We laid down a rug and we’ve been playing many rounds of chutes and ladders -my youngest thinks it’s the best when she gets to go down the slides, missing the point of the game? which is to get to the top?… but maybe not…kids are smarter than we are. Slides are fun. Sometimes going the other way is just fine; she likes to put one hand in the air while she’s moving her little chutes and ladders person down the slide and say Woohoooooo!!
Ya know, one of the reasons I was so unhappy in my old life, before all this adventuring started, was I was extremely out of practice at trusting myself. Not a novel experience right? We’ve all been there. But I truly didn’t believe I could safely take chances and make changes in my life. I thought it would kill me and/or it was definitely too late for such things. Because, OMG, what if I lost my place in the race? Not stopping to realize I really really hated running. Why was I even running? The real question should be is there a slide nearby? Or even better, how about we step back, eat a gluten free cookie, go for a walk and come back to see what adds up …there’s gunna be a few mistakes but in the end the math always works out…even if it’s an estimate - we’re getting closer.
Uff! Yeah. I feel that. It seems like the older you get the more important it is to get the right stuff, find the right spot, the spot that fits, the spot that resonates with you. I struggled with that in our last house, our starter house condo that I never liked but it made sense- the plan was to be there maybe 3 years but it turned into 7, all the while I was antsy and thinking “this place can’t be Mina’s childhood home!” My childhood home was lovely and unique and well designed- a home worthy of growing up in. I think that was why I felt such an urgency to escape the condo.
I think you made the right choice. Sometimes you just have to land and unpack the butterfly wings.