I bought a house!

Holy shit I bought a house! This isn’t something I thought I’d be saying. But here we are. I am a homeowner!

I’ve just moved house and it’s not been without its struggles. In fact, three weeks in and we’re still struggling in some areas, namely, the kids being home from school for the past three weeks and the youngest basically becoming feral in the process. But it was the first few days where the real shock took place.

When I was packing up the old house, I decided to throw a lot of things away, with the intention of replacing it later. I did this without considering where the money would come from to actually pay for the new things I wanted. I tend to try and lean into a positive (somewhat naive or overconfident) money mindset whenever possible rather than let me mind free fall into one of fear. In throwing everything away, bar a couple of pots and pans, we arrived at our new house without many basic appliances. No washing machine or dryer. No kettle. No toaster. A few emergency towels. Beds that couldn’t be put up. No mattresses. OMG I had Marie Kondoed myself into a state of discomfort and inconvenience!

But what I realised is even with all of the ‘missing’ stuff. My new house felt homely. It felt safe. It felt full of lightness and good. I realised that as much as I new I would replace some of the missing items out of necessity and splurge on others out of impulsiveness, this wasn’t the shit I needed to care about. The shit you should care about is the way something or someone makes you feel. In the midst of all the upheaval I had good friends, family and an online community in my corner, with advice, laughter and the ever ready offer of rum, babysitting and cash injections to tide me over and keep us fed.

There was a week where I’d seriously under estimated how much money it would cost to run two households at once. Nope. I don’t have a secret family that I run off to on odd days. I just had a rental property I was still under the lease of and paying bills on as well as the new house I’d bought. Needless to say, I looked at my bank account a week before pay-day to find I’d reached double digits. My friends and family didn’t think twice to bail me out for the week and I’m forever grateful to them for that.

Again, this is the kind of shit you should care about over the trivial things. I worried about having people round before my house was ready. I don’t know what ready looks like. At first it was at least having the boxes completely unpacked, or getting sofas and stuff so people could be comfortable. Then I realised any friend who wanted to come and see me within weeks of moving wouldn’t be expecting a ‘done’ space. They wouldn’t give a shit about it to be fair, they were here to see me and they would know me well enough not to expect a perfect space by any long stretch of the imagination.

Anyway, all of this is to say it’s been a journey and a half of putting life into perspective. Of remembering to take stock of what actually matters and putting aside everything that doesn’t need to be worried about. I’m no sage and don’t claim to be. Most of the time I don’t feel like much of an adult, let alone a wise one. But I did promise myself I’d share more of what I learned, when I learned it. Because it might help one person get to the same conclusion that little bit quicker and that can only be a good thing, right?

That’s it for now. The littlest one is waking up and is going to ask for food within 30 seconds of walking into the room…bye for now!