I love my house.
I love its historical significance. I love that it’s quirky and has grown and changed over time. I love every single bit of this collection of walls and floors. Truly. From the weird dirt basement to the gorgeous bathroom floor that took me forever to do and has wonky spots. I love it. Unconditionally.
I started to take the rotten siding off and realized that it was going to need more extensive repair than I expected. I got in a judgmental head space about myself, my ability, and my meager budget. When I looked around at my house I just started to see unfinished projects or things that were slightly off kilter. I saw normal instead of designer and it made me feel like a screw up.
I called on my team (David and Nichole, thank you), and while they listened or handed me Kleenex and gave hugs, I realized this is NOT a health crisis. This is NOT ruin. I have already lived through much harder scenarios. I have Innana’s shield tattooed on me. There is nothing getting me down in the underworld until I’m damn ready to go.
My whole house is “off kilter.” It is old. No renovation I do in or on this house is going to be TV perfect. And you know what? Neither are the TV perfect homes. They all have a room or garage or shed with detritus from the job, there are surely chipped and hastily installed things, and somewhere there is trim that’s 1/16” off. Same here. It’s time to let myself off the hook.
In that same vein, I’m not saying I will eschew quality work. I am saying if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing as well as I can. It’s going to be imperfect. And I will also love it. I will give myself every single second of time to do it that I need. I had imposed this silly “get done before school starts” rule, which is 100% unrealistic and could even be damaging to me. I have to rest when I need to rest.
So I’m sitting here, big lessons learned about myself and my precious home, and watching the sprinkler with glee in my heart.
It’s a pretty magical thing, accepting your existence as human. I highly recommend it.
