Being a House

I remember when our home was being inspected before we bought it.  The man who performed the inspection spent time in the attic, and he crawled around under the house.  He checked the plumbing and insulation, the roof, the flooring, the hot water heater and a host of other things about which I know little.  When he was finally finished, he informed us that the house was in pretty decent shape and that it passed the inspection.  Still, I was only mildly excited about becoming the new owner of the 1952 ranch-style house.  The yard was full of weeds, and there was almost no shine on the wood floors.  The bathrooms were dated and ugly.  It smelled like mothballs.  The house we bought didn't come close to the gorgeous home that I had constructed in my head for my first house.

I had imagined my first house being beautiful, adorned with custom landscaping and crown moulding and beautiful wood flooring.  I imagined owning the kind of house I saw on the covers of home improvement magazines while standing in line at Lowes or The Home Depot.  Our home offers none of those things.  Instead, it simply offers the possibility of those things.  It's as if the home says, "Look, I want those things, too.  But you're going to have to do them for me.  I'm a clean slate.  Turn me into anything you wish."

So, that's what we've done.  The work began the very night we moved into the house.  Paint cans were opened, and the scream of power saws and drills filled the air.  Since we've owned the house, we've made large patios, dug flower beds, remodeled bath rooms, planted trees and had carpet and tile installed.  Our list of things still to do is quite long, but the home is the nicest it has ever been.  On occasion, I sit outside on the red brick patio, look out across the green grass (that once was more weeds than grass) and think about this house's story and how similar it is to my own.

In 1997, I graduated from college with nothing.  Nothing.  I had a tired 1989 Chevrolet  IROC-Z.  I had the clothes that could fit into a trunk and some hand-me-down furniture.  I wasn't exactly sure how, but I was supposed to find a job and somehow make a good living.  The road since then has been twisty and hilly and, at times, arduous.  There were times when I've been confused and knocked down.  Frustrated and disappointed.  But as I sit on the patio now, sip a glass of wine, watch my son play on his fort and smell the steaks on the grill and the jasmine flowers, I come to the realization that I've never had such a comfortable situation before.  Am I happy where I am?  Not entirely.  I have a long way to go.  If I were a house, I wouldn't yet be that beautiful home on the cover of the home improvement magazine.  By the same token, I think if our house could speak, it would say much the same thing.  It might say, "Hey, look.  I'm cuter and more comfortable than I've ever been before, but there's quite a lot I still need."  And it would be right.

A mistake I've made in the past is to focus on the things I don't have or haven't accomplished.  When I do this, I eventually become impatient and frustrated at my situation, preventing me from enjoying the things I do have or have accomplished.  I try to force myself to block out the always-growing list of things I still want and focus, instead, on trying to enjoy the life I am living today while still continue inching along toward something better.

I'm now convinced that those beautiful homes on the covers of those home improvement magazines didn't become beautiful overnight.  It took time.  One project at a time.  One nail at a time.  One paint brush stroke at a time.

What I'm saying is I don't think life is any different.