Almost Home

My family's lived in the same house since I was 6 years old. By the time I moved out at age 18, we'd shared a lot of life there. It was ours. We knew the history of every wall and floor and space: The place in the hallway where I'd accidentally shoved part of a toy up my brother's nose; my sister's old bedroom that I'd snuck into one night to put glue on her face while she slept as revenge for an incident no one remembers; the exclusive resort of My Parents' Bathroom where I've only ever taken two showers in my entire life; the painted-over splatter of red dots on the kitchen ceiling where we kids had flung milky Apple Jacks off our spoons at breakfast one morning. I'd return home after a visit to Pizza Hut or whatever, and walk in, and be like, "I know this place" without even knowing I was feeling that.

It wasn't until Joe and I got married and moved into our first rental home that I found out that your stuff being in a place doesn't make it home. Those walls aren't yours. Tired of looking at that imitation wood paneling? Too bad. Your dog locks himself in the bathroom, scratches paint off the wall next to the door, then gets explosive diarrhea and smears it everywhere, including on the owner's nice curtains? After you clean it up, it's time to be worried about angry landlords while you go buy can after can of paint until you finally match the color of the ruined spot.

Renting is begging someone to let you give them money so you can stress out about keeping their place pristine for months and months while having very little control over your surroundings. Renting is when you don't know where you'll be in a year. Buying, on the other hand, is paying thousands of dollars of hidden costs just so you can paint some walls. What a deal!

We weren't planning on buying. We're going to be here for three years, and the rule on buying a house is five or seven or more years. But when we saw that we didn't have to spend $150,000+ to get a decent house and that we'd get a return of thousands of dollars when it was time to sell, we started looking at listings.

And so I'm sitting in the recliner in this hotel room where we've lived for the past week and a half waiting for the last of the paperwork on our house.

I get tired of being cooped up in here. I spend my time reading about tile backsplashes and siding estimates and how much it would cost to move a toilet across a bathroom. I also watch a lot of HGTV, with this infomercial that comes on ten times a day, yelling "PICK A POCKET HOSE!." I'm ready to get out of this room, get into our house, and see what it's like to wake up to a feeling of stability and a day of getting paint in my hair.