“Whenever I get discouraged and want to quit something, I remember the words of my then 3 year-old after she puked carrots all over the living room floor: “I’m gonna need more carrots.” – Jessica Valenti
Out of the mouths of babes! Our three-day weekend was taken up by a lot of our hot water pipes being replaced in our house. Today, we start interviewing drywall people. Yesterday, in a fit of frustration, I insisted that my husband and I drive around town, looking at neighborhoods that we may want to settle in, when our daughter heads to college, in about a year. I was angry at my house. I felt let down. They say that comparison is the thief of happiness, but yesterday that proved false. Kind of like “the country mouse” in the fable of “The Country Mouse and The City Mouse”, I felt a new sense of relief and appreciation and comfort, when we arrived back home, from our drive around town. Just like my body, my home may be getting a little worn down, but its bones are good, it has beautiful views of its surroundings, and it is filled with love. For now, we stay put. Maybe all that we really need to do, is to plant some carrots in our garden.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Perhaps you just need to shift your perspective about the house.
I can totally relate to your feeling of being mad at it. Did you find yourself reckoning with it? “I’ve loved you, I’ve maintained you, I’ve decorated you. Why are you doing this to me?”
I did that too. I couldn’t understand why my house would betray me like that.
Then I realized I was looking at it through the wrong lens. My house didn’t hate me – it was ill. It had done it’s best to fend off the illness for as long as it could, but it was exhausted, and it needed help to heal.
That didn’t change my negative perspective about spending thousands of dollars to fix it, but it did help me have more compassion for the situation and the disruption that it caused. I found myself understanding that this was just another bump in the road of life and knowing that I would feel more secure in my home once the work was completed. Sort of like having passed another hurdle and not having to worry about that anymore.
Hang in there!
Beautiful perspective, thank you as always, Kelly!