I bought a house.
I bought this house, and I keep telling myself that I SHOULD be excited, that I SHOULD be proud, that I SHOULD be all these things… and yet. I’m not. I say that in present tense because it still very much is present for me. I didn’t want it. I was perfectly happy renting and not being tied to anything. I never thought that I’d stay in Ohio let alone buy a house here. I forever have been dreaming of the day I could leave. And here I am buying a house because the apartment complex I was in told me they were raising my rent to a price I could no longer justify, and I wasn’t ready to leave the area I was in.
The thing about Merriman Valley is that it’s beautiful. There is nothing I love more than getting off the highway 20 minutes from my home and driving through the trees and down the winding roads into the valley through the national park. It makes me so happy that there is no easy way to get to me. That I’m kinda hidden down there in a way. I have gatekept my location since I moved. Watching closely who has access to my address and to me. Not because I care if they know where I am, but because it feels SO GOOD to have a place that feels like peace to come home to, and I don’t want to share it. More accurately, wasn’t ready to share it. Still maybe not ready to share it. My best friend is the closest they have ever been, which feels really nice, nature is quite literally right out my door and something finally felt like home for the first time in a long time. This house.. it currently does not. It’s less than one mile from where I was and it feels oddly not mine yet.
How could I not want this? What is the issue here? It’s so perfect. More space than I currently need, or may ever need, but otherwise it’s a perfect townhouse. End unit, no builds on the open side, open floor plan with so many possibilities, in the same area I fell in love with last year. What is my problem? I was so deeply sad after my offer was accepted and through the entire buying process. I felt so entirely overwhelmed even though I could see exactly how I wanted to arrange the house and my body felt good and like a “yes” while I was inside the house. So what was the deal? I couldn’t place the emotions or the motive behind them. It was starting to really wear on me. Everyone I’d tell I bought a house and show would immediately respond with “it’s so big, what are you gonna do with all that space?” and then I started questioning it further.
It wasn’t until I was on a call with a dear friend who lives out in Portland that I was able to put a name to it all. After she looked at the listing with me and went room for room telling me how beautiful it was and offering her suggestions on what I could do with the space and how many options I had now, she was told me about her first home buying experience. Telling me how ALONE she had felt in the process because traditionally you purchase your first home with a partner. Before she even finished her sentence I was in tears. I hadn’t yet cried over this decision to buy a house. It felt immature of me to be upset about something I should be proud of. In that moment though, she gave me the permission I didn’t know I needed to feel an emotion that I didn’t have a name for. I was feeling alone. I had no one to bounce ideas with, no one to help make decisions or help me move or help with projects once I was in. Which also felt insane to me to feel because it wasn’t really true. I have plenty of trusted friends I can ask opinions to and who would likely help move me if I had only asked. It didn’t feel that way though, and here’s why.
Trauma. Societal conditioning. Parental conditioning and lack of exposure to any alternative. A moment in my de-conditioning that I hadn’t met yet. My brother and sister did everything mostly “in order”. Meet the partner, get married, get the house, have the kid. My parents were high school sweethearts, most of my friends have also moved in this order. My life has NEVER been this. I have had more than double the partners as my siblings. A failed engagement. More than a few big career shifts. Ten moves in a decade trying to find home. A current career that I am so committed to that often gets in the way of “in order”. My priorities have always been more “selfish”. I wanted to craft a life that I loved, a version of me that I didn’t want to hide and wasn’t ashamed of before I did the rest of those things IF I did the rest of those things. While I was buying this house all of these things hit me and felt so wrong. Like I chose to do my life wrong. A valid feeling, but a feeling that was driven almost entirely by conditioning.
While I sat with all these feelings, and frankly still must sit with, I constantly remind myself that my life is damn near close to everything I have wanted for a really long time. It’s not wrong to want a career and a life that doesn’t involve marriage at 25 and children by 30 and a white picket fence that society sells women their entire life. I almost had those things and I love and honor that Marissa, but I am certain at this point that she wouldn’t’ have been happy anymore. It wouldn’t have been enough. My life right now is dreamy as fuck and becoming more so daily. I have cultivated a life where I’ve been to 23 countries and counting experiencing new cultures. I have a career that takes me all over this country that I love. I have balanced my finances in a way that I could buy a home too big for my needs and still have comfortable money left in the bank as well as travel still and spend on things I want. I don’t have a partner, but I have friendships that offer me similar but different intimacies and are so important and big and flow both ways not just one. This feels good FOR ME. There is no right or wrong way to play the game of life. When I have these feelings of loneliness or shame for the lack of “in order”, I gently notice them and just don’t let them sit down at the table. They can pass go, but they can’t collect 200$, ya know?
Where do you need to remind yourself that your feelings are valid but also maybe driven by the conditioning you were brought up in? Being aware of these things has been so so gratifying and full of new clarity. It’s not easy, I don’t think it’s really meant to be, but it’s something that has made everything easier to navigate. Sometimes the awareness is so easy to find and others I need someone to point it out to me, but one way or another I get there.
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