Apr 18, 2011

Home



I love your house…
I’ve been hearing this since the moment our feet landed foot in our unpolished home. Before the keys we’re even placed in our hands, this house was the talk of the year.
What a deal! What a find! What potential!

With all this hype, I will honestly admit, I grew a dislike for the house. What’s so special about a roof, cement and some walls? While others made plans and gushed, I just ignored the thoughts of this place. My apartment was my home and as much as I hated the place, it was where I was at the moment. No pressure of color choices or what to do with this or that. No one expected my apartment to be a 5 star hotel, and I liked that.
As much as I tried and fought, I couldn’t completely ignore this home. Every redesign and paint choice included my opinion one way or another. This brought about pressure I never felt before. Do I dare do blue in a kitchen? Where will the couch go? Would my 70’s floral couch even match my now raspberry rooms? My head would burn every time I left this place, worrying if I made the right choice. Yet I pushed through, slowly watching this house become “ours”, not just a shell of a home left behind. The birds outside would sing as I painted every weekend, in a sense welcoming me to these new walls. Before long, furniture was moved in and people given grand tours, but the pressure, oh it has yet to leave…..

Here I am, sitting on my perfectly polished oak floors and in the back of my mind that pressure still looms. What do I put on my walls? What carpets do I put where? There isn’t a day that someone doesn’t ask what’s next. Is there a next? I wasn’t even thinking that far yet!  But it feels as if people have already pictured how this place should be long before I even sat here. Wait! Is this my home or the worlds? It gets to point where I turn stagnate, yearning for the days where anything anywhere would do. Where it was a couch, a radio and just us.

Cleaning this place has even given me anxiety on quiet a few occasions as I am not accustom to so much with so much detail. The thought of having a cleaning schedule actually alarms me, for what use to take an hour will take DAYS. 

I want to love this place, don’t get me wrong, and I am blessed to have it. Waking up to birds singing not stomping neighbors is worth its weight in gold. Not too many people can say they totally customized a house in what literally is the perfect location. I just wish it didn’t come with an audience & panel of critiques. I am not one to make a house look like a picture from a magazine. I am far from Martha Stewart. I enjoy the flaws, our mistakes and insane choice of colors.
Do I have an idea what I’m doing? Nope, not a single clue.
Do I need to? No! Cause then what’s the sense of owning this place.
I’m not out to appease the masses, no matter how much my perfectionism pushes me to. If I want polka carpets and neon walls, so be it. It may not be polished and perfect but be damn if anyone else will make this house feel less then a home to me.

So every morning I sit here, my coffee and this house. I listen to the birds and stare at the marvel that is ours. Sure, there is trimming to do. There is nothing on my walls. My entire upstairs needs a vacuum. But I got time. Right now, I want to just enjoy this. Welcome this house into my heart for a change.
What’s next? You’ll just have to wait and see.


Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action.  ~Mother Teresa

1 comments:

Jessi B. said...

Love this. After so many houses, I totally get exactly what you're feeling. It's easy for someone else to walk in and say, "do this, do that" or "you should clean that better" or "doesn't the dust on the table bother you?" - lol.. that last one is my favorite. :) But the point is that it's your house. Truly, I'm a firm believer in the fact that you have to LIVE in your house for a while before you really know your house. You have to feel it - breathe it - and decorating is not something you, or anyone else can do until you've spent some time really getting to know your new home.

the cleaning? I wish I could say it gets better, but alas - it does not. you'll become more efficient and days will whittle down to 3 or 4 hours, but still - it's an endless cycle and a royal pain in the ass. The up side is that Averi will soon be able to clean her own room with windex and all - and well, that's at least one less thing mommy has to do.

Hang in there and don't let the haters (or lovers of your house and it's potential) get you down.