On Halloween night of 2022 we stood in front of our new house waving our keys around in front of the camera. Then my son promptly threw up in the driveway. I hoped it was NOT an omen for the future.
It took us 11 years of thinking and saving before we finally bought our house. There have been some surprises since then but on the whole all I feel is grateful. We live on an acre and are very lucky to be surrounded by horse farms here in SW Washington. I dare you to find a more fertile region for growing things, I’ve always been a gardener and was even an urban chicken person for several years. I have grown things in tiny spaces, odd rooms, strange nooks, wide open pastures and window sills (none of which I owned). To say the least a whole acre feels like a 1,000 acres! I’ve always imagined raising chickens, selling eggs, cutting greens from my yard at Christmas, and growing sweet smelling clematis all over my front porch. There is plenty to keep me busy right now and lots of goals. Everyday is a new adventure in my yard and I feel nothing but gratitude.
Nowhere is it written that I “deserved” to own a home. While that notion is deeply engrained into the American dream, I always knew that most people in this world don’t know how they are going to feed their family, much less own a whole house. Very few in this life know such stability. Yet even with this knowledge, I would find myself pouting and complaining. Why was the housing market so expensive? Why did Chip and Joanna Gaines have to make it look so easy? Why does Zillow keep sending me cute cottages in Maine??!!
When I look back on those moments I’m filled with embarrassment and dare I say, shame. While “shame” is no longer fashionable, I’m one of the old timey people who still see its value in healthy amounts. The problem with complaining about what you don’t have…is that when you finally get the thing you always wanted…you regret having not wished and hoped with more grace.
Recently we experienced a particularly magical winter night (Ash Wednesday). I stood in front of our house watching my children make a campfire in the snow. The stars were bright and the shadow outline of the tall pines encircled us. Our corgi meandered through the dormant blueberry patch sniffing for moles. “There is no way I could possibly deserve this.Thank you” was all I could think.
For some wildly strange reason, I have been gifted this beautiful place to call home. I don’t know for what purpose or for how long…but I hope it is a place where all kinds of people gather and feel loved. I hope that no matter who they are or where they come from, they will get to stand around a campfire in the snow with me and think “wow, that was a fun day.”
