I hate my house. Hate it. It is a giant daily reminder of THE biggest, most heart wrenching, sphincter twisting, soul stomping, mind blowing failure of my life.
Except that I really do like my house. It’s the right size for me although I’d love a deck and a bigger bathtub. The yard is way too big and totally out of my control; but I have no desire to control a yard anyway so it and I are going to have to come to a compromise soon. I’m hoping the compromise involves a deck, a fence and zero-scaping.
It’s close to my mom, close to the highway, on a bus line, inside the perimeter and close to my job. On the surface all the things I would want if I picked a house.
Which brings me back around to another reason that I hate my house. I didn’t pick it. Just lined up to pay for it. Got stuck in it because I couldn’t abandon the financial responsibility. Although in hindsight, had I been thinking about more than escape, I could have let it go into foreclosure. Except I can’t convince myself of that being an option. What did happen might have been profitable for someone but it wasn’t me and it wasn’t, isn’t, fair by a long stretch; which brings us back around to that failure thing and another reason to hate my house.
I keep doing the positive thinking, rewording, reorganizing history, hoping to make it feel okay. Except the only thing that makes it feel okay is to admit that sometimes I hate my house. I hate the failure that left me with the house. I hate the circumstances under which I am left feeling that I chose a person, not a house; and without the person, I’m left hating the house even though I’m happy the person is gone.
I am trying to get to know the house all over again; pretending that I just met it. Had I just met the house I probably wouldn’t have looked at it twice. It’s the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of houses.
It’s a good house though. Roof, walls and foundation are sound; gutters are a little wrecked but they do the job of keeping water out. There are enough rooms for me, an office and a guest room. It still needs to recover from the mistreatment done to it. What was a nice looking yard was bulldozed into it’s current state of ugliness; the inside was left half painted, carpet yanked up and not replaced, subfloor exposed and tramped upon, baseboards chewed, peed on and left dirty too long. Too many projects started and left in a half finished state.
Maybe the house hates me a little in return.