Sometimes I fool myself into believing I am resistant to the lifestyle inflation of social media and home renovation shows…unsurprisingly, it seems I’ve given myself too much credit. No matter how pragmatic I try to be, I keep bumping up against this feeling of wanting more than I can have.
I knew what I was buying 4 years ago, a modest 1950s ranch home that hadn’t been updated or even painted in decades. By now I expected to have remodeled both bathrooms, landscaped the front and back yards, and started to think about a reface of the kitchen. But perhaps also unsurprisingly I was not prepared for the curve balls in life that would delay progress on the simplest updates, much less the changing economics and exploding costs that have turned a budget for 2 bathrooms into 1 and my party-friendly backyard vision into a maybe-someday dream. While it’s coming together, the constant compromises are wearing on me. What keeps welling up is a desire for more, for something fresh and new and exactly what I want rather than a fraction of it.
I keep reminding myself that the house is in pretty good shape, even if it’s stuck in the 90s. Living in one of the most expensive markets in the country, I’m incredibly fortunate to own anything here! Especially a whole house in a quiet neighborhood. Even if the washer and dryer are out in the unfinished garage, at least it has a garage. This is real life — you live in what you can afford and then, if you’re lucky, occasionally upgrade on a budget. Until flippers came on the scene we didn’t expect to move into fully remodeled homes, we made do.
This is just a mood, I’ll get over it. But as is often the case, my feelings are too strong to be fully about the house.
With that in mind, it seems clear that a large part of this is coming from the stress of living through global chaos and fear. How my nest feels has gained an outsized importance — it’s something I can (in theory) control and it’s my refuge from a mad world. Having a beautiful, functional space regulates and soothes me (whilst cathedral arch cabinets offend my aesthetic soul). It’s also about aging and that moment in mid life when we look around and think, is this it? Not to mention a business climate that has cratered during the third act of my career, making the future feel less solid. As economic prospects decline for many Americans, the idea of ‘golden years’ feels more and more absurd.
Wanting more for my home is also wanting more for this country and the futures of all of us non-billionaires — more prosperity, more beauty, more opportunity, more progress, more community, more more more! At a time when it seems all we’re getting is more heartache and struggle.