Is It the House?

On chasing the “perfect” life and home

I had a dream last night about our old house. It was as if we were there present-day—having lived in our new house for over three years now—but we were back standing in our old living room, walking through the house as if we were about to sell it. Examining the cleanliness of the carpet, talking about what we still needed to clean, remarking on this being our last night in the house, etc.

And then, I looked at my husband, and with this sad, pathetic, little voice, I said, “Do you know what? I miss it.”

And he looked at me with the same sad longing and said, “Me too.”

It’s hard to explain how devastating and also nonsensical this dream feels to me.

In one breath, I’d tell you that it made complete sense for us to move. It was a garden home for God’s sake. We were never going to be there forever. And the market was booming and interest rates were low, and we “needed” more space, and there were just so many things I didn’t like about it. Things I wanted to change.

And in the next breath—it was a good house. A great one, actually. One that l look back on with the fondest of memories. Everything from frigid Christmas parties on the deck by the fire, to celebrating last-second football game wins, to the warm light shining through those big windows in the morning, to the countless friends we grew close to over cheap dinners and the couch in our cozy living room.

And admittedly, the times were different. This was all before COVID. (We bought our new house in August 2020.) The dreams we had of endlessly entertaining in our big, new house were thwarted—in part because we just couldn’t for awhile, but also, it seems, because COVID changed people. It made people more fickle, more flakey, and simply less interested in getting out and going to other people’s houses.

So in one breath, I can convince myself that it isn’t actually about the house. But then I think about everything we’ve experienced since then, in the new house… like the traumatic death of our precious kitten mere days after moving in, or the weight and heaviness that’s only grown for the last three years, or the fact that we’ve been sleeping in our guest room for months because we started waking up night after night in our bedroom with terrible dreams and a general sense of darkness. (We’ve slept soundly since moving to our guest room, by the way.)

And I think about how grateful I am for our neighborhood trees and for having more space, and especially my bigger art studio. “You’ve got a nice house,” so many people have said it us. Remarking on the open feel and the homey neighborhood and the modern finishes and the beautiful paint colors we customized when we moved in. And they’re right.

And, I have now realized, there was nothing wrong with our old house—however much I nitpicked it and complained about it. And our old house didn’t make us feel heavy.

So where does that leave us? I’m not sure, honestly. I don’t have to tell you that interest rates suck right now, and it would be hard for us to afford half the house that we have now. (And with how home prices have skyrocketed, there isn’t much left to consider in that price range anyhow.)

Which seems to mean that we’re here, in our new house, for the foreseeable future. Missing and dreaming about our old house and wondering whether it actually was/is the house—or if it’s just life and the house by association.

What I do know is, my quest for the perfect home has dissipated. I complained so much about our old house towards the end. The small rooms. The small yard. The lack of trees. How it didn’t make sense to paint or customize anything because it was “just a garden home” and we wouldn’t be here forever and we’d out-price our market if we renovated.

And yet, now that I’ve got a home that looks perfect on the outside—big yard, big trees, modern finishes, open concept—it feels… lonely? Empty? Heavy?

And again, perhaps it isn’t the house. Perhaps I’m doing the same thing now that I did before, mistakenly thinking that a new house will fix things—only now, I want the feeling, not the finishes.

Back to my dream: I said I miss it. And maybe what I miss really is the house. But the old house is sold, and probably a different paint color, and probably a different energy entirely at this point. The old house is gone, and there is nothing I can do to change that.

What I can change, however, is the deeper longing. The warmth. The light. The friendship. The joy.

Is it the house? Only time will tell. But regardless, I’m determined to bring the warmth and the joy with me.

P.S. I’m sad to say that I can’t find any photos of our old house to share—probably because I didn’t think it was good enough or special enough to take photos of. (Go figure.) I can still picture all of the little details so vividly, but man, having photos would have been special. Lesson learned. (Take photos of your homes, people!) The photo here captures the feel of the windows in our old living room, courtesy of Unsplash.