This is the first time I’ve been able to sit down and write since moving in to our new home. I have some thoughts and feelings about the whole ordeal that I want to flesh out.
The first thing is simply the amount of strain that moving took on my body. My back felt awful yesterday and it still doesn’t feel like it’s fully recovered. My legs feel very weak and I’m a bit worried about getting back into cycling in a weekly group ride starting tonight. I truly don’t understand how some older men are able to be movers for their whole career and do this day in and day out. The whole ordeal must have been gruesome for my in-laws who were kind enough to help us move.
It’s not just physical strain, though. I was incredibly stressed throughout the entire weekend. The physical strain on Saturday only made things worse, but even on Sunday I didn’t feel very calm. We spent most of Sunday putting things away around the house, and only got through the kitchen. Most of the past few days have just been running back and forth – “Oh, this goes in the bedroom so I have to walk all the way over there. Oh, this goes in the kitchen so I have to walk back now.” I think that I’m going to lose a whole year of my life just walking between rooms in this house in order to get anything done.
And I don’t mean that in jest. I truly think that that is a major downside to having such a large house – the travel time between rooms adds friction to anything that you want to do. For example, if in the middle of the day there is a knock at the front door for a package containing cleaning supplies, what should I do? Do I go get the box off the porch? If so, do I just leave it at the front door, or do I bring it to the closet that they’re supposed to live in? At the old house, it was a no-brainer to grab the box and put away its contents ASAP. It was quick, easy, and was one fewer thing to think about doing later that day. But now, it’s a legitimate trek to get from the front door to the closet that these things go in – not to mention that we haven’t fully figured out where to even place those things in the closet, so there’s even more friction in figuring that out on the fly. That will get sorted out in time, though, so I should revisit this thought in a few months once we’ve received a few packages where I know exactly where to place them.
I found a similar dynamic regarding things related to work. The upstairs of our house is dedicated to our offices where we work every day. The idea behind it was to have full physical separation of work and home. From the perspective of combatting burnout, I still think this is a wonderful idea. But my work laptop now lives upstairs, and my only other personal computer is a desktop that (for now) also lives upstairs. I found it easier to just add reminders to my phone to do stuff the next day on my computer than to go upstairs and do it right then and there. This is both a blessing and a curse though, and I purposefully wanted the house designed this way. So I’m just going to have to get used to this workflow change.
Switching gears a bit; another thing I have noticed about my mindset when living in this house is that I want everything to remain pristine like no one has lived in this place. Unfortunately, that is simply not a possible standard to live up to. Sure, there are things that we’ll be able to do in order to keep things tidy and orderly – robot vacuums and lawn mowers, creating a weekly cleaning check list that (ideally) does not overwhelm us, etc. – but this house will never be as clean as it was when we first moved in to it. You won’t be able to get all of the dust out of the corner of the counter top. Some of the trim details will get a bit dinged over time. When you run the tap water in the sink, you will continue to notice breaks in the water’s laminar flow down the sink bowl because there are small bits that you’ve neglected to scrub out (too specific? I’ve already noticed it twice in the past two days). And the list goes on.
I’m going to have to learn to accept a bit of mess. I want to minimize the mess as much as is reasonably possible, but I have yet to come to terms with the fact that the point of this house is to be lived in, and as such, it’s going to get a bit beat up here and there over time. Obsessing over every slight imperfection in the house is going to make you suffer.
Finally, there is the fact that there is still a decent list of things to do before our house is fully ours. We technically are not the owners of the house yet. We have not yet converted our construction loan to a traditional mortgage. We don’t even have house keys; we can only get into the house via the garage door (which both us and the builders know the code). Our lawn is still very young grass seed and, therefore, we can’t let our dog walk on it. We are still looking to get a fence installed in the backyard so that we can let him off leash. We have no blinds for the next month or so until they’re installed, so anyone walking by can see us sleep in our bedroom. The lack of blinds is also distracting me at work as I look out of my office to see people walking by. They too can see me, clacking away in my ivory tower, and we exchange a glance at one another before quickly looking away. It feels somewhat violating being this exposed, even if all I’m doing is typing at my desk or reading a book in my bed.
All of these little things (which will get fixed) leads to anxiety. When are we getting the house keys? Will our lawn come in okay? What are those passers-by thinking about this Victorian house with an eccentric paint job in a neighborhood that has a penchant for mid-century modern homes? And will the loan transfer happen quickly and smoothly?
The cherry on top is that these are all self-inflicted problems. We didn’t have to build a house, let alone a house this size or even in this neighborhood. But I knew what I was getting into when I signed the papers to build this place, and I’m still hopeful that things will get easier over the next few months. As the Notorious B.I.G. once said: “Mo Money Home, Mo Problems.”