I came home from a week at my mom’s. Her house is muffled and chilled, a soothing and inviting respite from the oppressive outdoor heat. Scented. Like Bath and Body Works. No dishes in the sink waiting for another day. Manicured lawn. Bathmats so fluffy that they get in the way of closing the doors. Towels straight out of a Downey commercial. Even the toilet paper is plush. The coordinating room sets allow us to name the rooms: the yellow room, the blue room. Quality comforters an inch or so thick. Carpet throughout. All of it feels a lot like a hotel. The nice kind.
It’s both easy and hard to come back. Obviously, I love being with Todd and the kids. I like the quiet of our area. I feel refreshed, ready to be home where my heart is; it’s comfortable. But you know what it’s like to be gone on a trip for a week. You kind of get the chance to look at your life through a new lens, maybe a little less biased, a little more objectively. So as I took it all in, scanning, taking note, I was surprised to feel a little saddish.
We have hardwood floors mostly. Our living room is sort of long and spread out; I wondered if my mom’s felt a little cozier. I like our style because it fits us, but my mom’s is traditional and vibrant, full of reds and blacks and yellows. Ours is mostly brown. I couldn’t help but notice how unfinished everything was as I walked around. Trim is absent or partly finished. Same with the paint. Bathrooms are from the olden days (not the cool olden days), all the toilet seats are askew or flimsy. The sinks don’t have plugs, nor do the bathtubs. The wood is antiquated and gummed from many previous tenants having primped in these very same corners. The showers are crumbling and etched from years of well water usage. No doors on any of the closets. That was just inside.
The driveway is gravel and dirt mix when it’s warm; a mud hole when it’s wet. An oversized industrial shop with a brown roof and a lighter brown wall set greets new arrivals. Nothing at all like the shops our friends have built on their properties that coordinate with their beautiful homes. So, so, so many weeds. All over the driveway. Along the shop. Vines poking up through the cement. Chickens and their food scraps scattered. Yard piles and projects everywhere I turned: trailers, old boat frame, pallets ready for the dump, landscaping rocks, shutters that haven’t worked out. It just all felt a little overwhelming to come to home to my work, to notice the un-done-ness of our property and all that we still had to get to.
I took pictures of what I saw and admitted I just felt tired, not exactly depressed or dejected, just weary. Imagine my surprise when an old friend quipped back with a short reply, “Don’t be tired. The fun part is fixing it up, enjoy it while it lasts.” So unexpected. But I was touched that he would even respond to my whining. His simple words affected and inspired me, and I’ve thought about them ever since. Todd and I have always tried to make ourselves feel better by asking each other what we would do with all our time and money if we already had a perfectly finished house. And we admit that we would rather buy a fixer-upper than have a brand new home; we remind ourselves that we chose this. And while we plugged as much as we could into our summer days and nights and made headway on some of the projects on our list, it can feel a little heavy thinking about how much we still have much to do. But every time I find myself feeling weighed down, I think about Mike’s advice. And I try to remember that it actually really is fun to be able to see the transformation take place, to see the renaissance happening right in front of us. His reminder motivates me to put on my gloves again and quit crabbing.
I’ve thought about how true this is in so many facets of our lives. Sometimes we just want to sigh and feel tired. Sometimes we just want to be done and move on, telling ourselves that surely this isn’t part of the journey we are supposed to enjoy, we want to curse whoever came up with such a dumb line, this couldn't possibly be what they were talking about, this here is just a hiccup in the road on the way to where the real fun starts.
Unless it isn’t. Maybe the mess, the chaos, the unfinished-ness of it all is ok. Maybe even more than fine. Maybe it is the fun part. When we reflect back on the days of our lives, we recognize that our memories weren’t always comfortable as we were making them. But with a tidy, cleaned-up perspective, we realize that it was in the mayhem and the floundering that we created these cherished recollections we so eagerly try to dismiss in the very moment they’re happening.
Certainly, we’ve lived long enough to know that—even when it’s trying and tiring—we’re going to miss this. Because when we really think about it, how many days of our lives do we get to nurse or cuddle with a one-week-old? And be up in the middle of the night with our sick three-year-old who just needs to be held and reassured? How many summer evenings will we really have with our teens listening to an old country radio station and painting the house till dark settles on us? How many more nights will we have them for family dinners or late-night pow-wows? How many times will all the furniture be in the living room—even the beds—providing the perfect backdrop for a family sleepover? How many times do we get a fresh start with a yard to do anything we want? Why do I wish so much of this away, declaring I’m just tired. He is so right, this is the fun part.
It sounded like I was giving up. And maybe I’m ok with that—temporarily. I think every now and then it’s ok to take a night off and regroup; I love those evenings without a project, when Todd and I sit together with our puzzle or maybe a show and some popcorn. But to be too tired to get back to it all, that’s not the kind of person I want to be.
And so I love that these words would transcend time and miles to bless my life with renewed perspective and peace. Along with energy and excitement for all that lies ahead in our todays and tomorrows. We’re nowhere near Bed and Breakfast status, and our projects loom over us like a cloudy day. But I choose to feel grateful. For ventures that keep us occupied, for work that unites us as a family, for the ability to decide what we want our home to look and feel like, to watch it all come together over time, and for the strength and ability to make it happen. The most satisfying kind of tired comes at the end an industrious day as we look back on what we managed to get done. And that’s just it. The fun is in the creation, in the conversion, whether it’s a staircase, a flower bed, a freshly painted bathroom, or a relationship. And as I start again with this perspective in mind, I’m fulfilled as I simply handle what today brings with a better attitude. I don’t need to wish this stage away—whether it’s dealing with a tough toddler or teen or making my way through college or lean years of early marriage or living without a kitchen or living room for several weeks—I think I'll follow Mike's advice and simply choose to think of it all as the fun part. Because I know—looking back—this is what I’ll call it anyway.
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