When I bought the house a little over two years ago - yes, it was that long ago and yes, I struggle to believe it was that long ago - I wrote myself a list and named it after a Barenaked Ladies song. Thankfully, it wasn't Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel or the Big Bang, but If I Had a Million Dollars (The House).
I can't remember if it was the very first night I stayed over in my own house or a little bit later, but it was back in the very early days of living here, and the things that are on it range from the, oh, that's for next week, or that's after next payday to being, okay, we need to do a few things before that, or that is going to need more than a little saving up for... It was very aspirational.
The last few months has rendered me quite nostalgic and I do end up sitting and thinking about how much things have changed in all of that time, because a lot has changed and things have changed a lot (and yes, that is two different things).
One of the things that was on the list was DOG =D and I feel like that was an amazing bit of foreshadowing, because it's a small word with a big meaning and it brings me lots of big smiles, just like the little fur ball it refers to. If I wrote the list in around June then it really didn't take a long time for that to change because the 28th July was the anniversary of the day Chai and I met. She wasn't fond of me then, but now she definitely is. The next thing on it was Car - Any f***ing car. Well, that changed a bit more slowly, but it certainly changed and my attitude towards cars has changed as well, though I seem to change my mind pretty regularly as to what I actually want for my next car (and when I want it seems to change quite a bit as well though that might be partly because I have revised the budget a couple of times.)
My feelings towards the house have changed a few times as well, whether it's towards things like the parking outside, my office upstairs (which has formally become a junk room) or the loft that I was going to store everything in. Sadly, I despise ladders and it's not getting any better from trying to force myself to use them, so I tend to not put things up there unless I'm sure I'm not going to need them for an extended length of time because it means I would have to go back up there gain to get them and I know I will just keep putting it off. The plans I had for the house have changed, too. There was a point over the last couple of years when I considered applying for an overseas post and so would have had to clear it and rent it out, there was another when I was thinking I needed to sell it and move to the sea (I think everyone goes through that pretty regularly), there have been points where I thought it was my forever home (fleeting points, but they have existed all the same) and points where it has been the bane of my existence.
Earlier this year, in a time that I could refer to as The Bad Beginning in the same way as a Series of Unfortunate Events because it was the first, or one of the first dominoes to fall, something went wrong with the paperwork for my new mortgage deal and I was convinced I was going to lose the house for the whole time until it was sorted. I was proud of myself because I handled it exactly how I needed to handle it, but it was horrible, because it wouldn't have just been losing this house. I knew it was an admin error, the mortgage company knew it was an admin error, but it was the scary sort of admin error that felt like it was going to ruin my life and something I was really proud of. I didn't love the house for a while after that and I didn't love it when I had issues with one of the utility companies causing damage to it by works they were doing locally. I'm not sure I've loved it anything like the same since either of those to things happened.
I've talked about having struggled with 'stuff' in the last couple of months, and this isn't even the tip of the iceberg, it was just the start of things and really, one of them I look back on and think, it was so easily solved it no longer matters and I almost forget it happened, and the other is still rumbling on, but I'm not alone in it, because it affects so many of my neighbours as well, and everything feels less crap when you're not on your own, but this is the stuff I can bring myself to write about. These are the things I can commit to a page, even if it's a virtual one, and these are things that the person writing that list would never have even thought of, but now I've done it, and I'm through it, and I'm just not going to think too hard about whether I feel stronger for it or not. I have to keep looking at those things and thinking, it was hard, it was horrid, but you got past it, and this too shall pass. Eventually.
No comments:
Post a Comment