Our home is shaped like an L.
On one end, bedrooms and bathrooms are clustered around a short hallway. This hallway empties into the living room, which houses the front door, coat closet, a squishy red couch, a few bookshelves, and a rather worn Oriental rug. Turn, and you find yourself in the kitchen, which flows into the dining room. Beyond that, the family room—which houses a much less-squishy blue couch, a television, a couple chairs, and a wall of built-in bookshelves.
We rarely use the rooms past the kitchen. I find myself wishing our house, which at about 1500 square feet is well below the national average, were smaller. More centralized. When I’m cooking, I like to chat with Jason. I can’t do that if he’s in the family room. When Simone’s in the bath, I want to be able to hear her playing while I pick up around the house.
Tonight I went to a babywearing meeting in another area of town. Jason and I lived there when we first got engaged. We walked to coffee shops and bookstores and our favorite Indian place. We lived in a small apartment with an absurd layout and an ugly futon and the dingy white walls of a rental, but it felt new and wonderful because it was ours. Driving home, the city lights a watery neon against the early autumn dusk, I listened to Richard and Teddy Thompson duet on the radio. I knew from the particular silence that my son was asleep in the backseat.
All of this time we have been looking for more, for upward mobility, for the things we feel are out of reach. But it’s always something more. We have two children and three cats. We have writing gigs and weekly playdates and alphabet magnets on the fridge. And sometimes I simply want to start over. Sell the house, pare down the toys and the kitchen equipment and the books and the electronics and the extra towels. Find a cozy rental in our old neighborhood and settle in. Less space. Less stuff. Less stress. More of each other and the things I really do, in the end, wish I could take with me.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
This is so relatable. So few things matter in life and all of them are relationships, not things.
If that is what you and your husband want, do it!
Unfortunately Jason has no interest in downsizing.
I feel the same way sometimes. When my husband and I first moved in together we lived in a really old duplex. It wasn’t that great, we even got mice really bad once. But I have the best memories of it. We didn’t have kids. We lived a couple blocks from a bar so on the weekends we could just walk to have a few drinks and dinner. I think I remember it as being a great time in our lives, but back then I don’t think I thought it was so great. We were both working lower paying jobs and going to school full time so money was tight. I had a longer commute to and from work… My point is, I think sometimes we can remember the good about something but don’t keep in mind that there were negatives also. It’s the typical case of the grass is always greener on the other side.
I have that tendency, definitely (doesn’t everyone?) but sadly, I don’t think that’s the case here. Aside from maybe the renting itself!
Amen! I couldn’t agree more. Our house is tiny, only 900 sq ft, which is fine, but I want to move to a new town and rent. Home ownership is not as good as I thought it would be.
I surely understand those longings for smaller and simpler – in some way our whole country is engaged in this longing, although we often come at it from incredibly different perspectives.
I guess there’s not much you can do about the bathtub being far from the center of action, but what about switching the living room and family room? Who says the room your guests first see has to be the “nice” one? You could move the TV, the toys, etc to the current living room and make the current family room into a more formal space. It’s close to the dining room (right?) where guests could move after dinner, making it more of an old-fashioned parlor.
When I first moved to Portland many years ago (my grownup daughter was five) I so missed the little shops and quirky people of our old neighborhood in the Bay Area. And I missed the variety of races and ethnicities – at that time Portland was Very White, it’s less so now. But I found a neighborhood that had the cute little shops and quirky people and I’d just pack my kid into the car and go wander there. Of course, it was easier – I only had one. But I still remember those wanderings – bittersweet.
A very thoughtful and thought-provoking post, Cate.
Well, there’d really be no point in switching the living room and family room. We just call them that to distinguish them from each other…they’re both extremely laid back rooms! We just don’t need two of them, really.
When I was pregnant with Simone and when she was very little, we took walks around that neighborhood several afternoons a week. We loved that. Our new neighborhood is not very good for walking.
I have been feeling the very same way recently. Hubby and I finally bought our dream house after 4 years of marriage (a cozy, 1500 sq. ft. old bungalow), and now we have more space, more stuff, and more responsibility. I am almost embarrassed at how much I have been reminiscing about our first apartment. It was more compact, which meant we had less stuff, and less work, less to fret about. Having more isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We were so happy in our small apartment, I wonder if the only reason we moved to a bigger house is because we felt the need to live up to everyone’s expectations of what is normal.
I know what you mean, Sarah. The extra space is nice sometimes but mostly it’s just more to keep up with!
I am 50 years old. I grew up a misfit in a highly consumer-oriented family. My husband and I have been married for 32 years. We have lived in many different places on both coasts. We started out in small apartments in NH and moved to Portland, OR where we bought our first house, which was 900 square feet. Eight years later we moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, where we lived in our largest house at 1300 square feet (it was round with a totem pole in the center). From there we started downsizing–we lived in a small cabin for a year and then moved to southern Oregon where we bought a 700-square-foot home. By this time, we realized that we really did not want to own a house ever again and even though we had been getting rid of stuff for years, we knew we could really pare down further. We parked our truck for 2 years and walked everywhere. We left Oregon in 2009 and left 10 not-very-large boxes (mostly filled with books) with friends to be mailed later, whenever we settled. We had some stuff in the back of our 1990 Ford Ranger and we ended up camping across the northern US for 99 days in our tent. We have landed in a small apartment in Midcoast Maine that is furnished with thrift store furniture and new or like-new stuff discarded by tenants at the self-storage place where my husband works. We have very little “stuff.” We started with very little, and although we never accumulated the amount of stuff that many people have, we found that it was really too much. I was the first to start moving in this direction–my husband was not really that enthused about this minimalist approach at first. But he eventually changed his thinking, so now we each know what is important to us–I work with yarn and I have the tools I need for that. The yarn is almost all from thrift shops or given to me by people who no longer want it. We are heavy library users. My husband is a photographer and has basic equipment for that. I am happier and more content than I ever have been–and I appreciate it so much because I was in a deep and almost suicidal depression a few short years ago. It was then that I realized that I needed to give up all the crap in my life that wasn’t mine to carry. Doing this set me free. You will figure things out, Cate, even though it sometimes seems like there is no way this can happen. Your life will evolve in ways that you can’t even imagine now and it will keep on offering surprises endlessly. You will find ways to craft the kind of life you want because you are a thoughtful and aware person. You might just be amazed someday at where you end up!
Thank you for commenting, Shari. You have an amazing story and I admire you so much!
When I first moved in with Robbie we were living in a 700 sq ft home out in Cox’s Creek. It was heavenly. I drive past that house every chance I get and I miss its simplicity. The house we bought in Shepherdsville is only 1250 sq ft, so it’s still cozy. I still miss our old house though.
cate, you can try thinking outside the box. turn one of the rooms into a classroom of sorts, or a playroom, for your children. or into a library. or an art/creative space. it doesn’t have to be heavily furnished, do some fun colors (even just on trim, walls aren’t necessary to paint).
i do believe you will appreciate having more space as your children go. and i must say, nothing beats even a small yard!
i enjoy reading your reflective posts. i often feel the same as you on many of the things you write about. it’s always refreshing to meet another deep, introspective soul along life’s road. you will find your way, the right way for you.
Thanks, Karen. I’m feeling drawn toward a much more reflective writing style lately. Truthfully, this is my default “mode” when I go to write, but I often steer clear of it on the blog. I’m not sure why…but I think reflective posts are going to be a longterm change.
happy to hear it then. be as you are (but do throw out a recipe or two every few months …they are AMAZING and easy lol). xo
*as your children GROW. sorry
I was just talking about this with a friend about this same thing. She and her husband would like to sell everything and live in a motorhome. But they have 2 kids, aged 16 & 8, so they will stay put, continue to pay on their mortgage and my friend will continue to dream about giving it all up. For me, I struggle with wanting the security a home provides and wanting more freedom. Freedom from all the responsible things I have that stress me out (house that is 17% below what we paid for it 9 years ago, job, feeling like I’ll never have enough in my children’s 529 plans to actually pay for 4 years of college). – I went to knitting tonight at Barnes & Noble and really had to fight myself from buying something! I buy things, which clutters the house and makes me feel like I squander any independence I could bank. We just refinanced to a 10 year mortgage and I seriously wondered if I stopped buying all but the essentials, if I could then quit my job in 10 years. But what would I do for medical insurance? So, I feel trapped – between fighting my materialism (and often losing) and wanting independence from the pressures of daily life. Make any sense? Don’t you find it harder to define what you want and take those steps when you have 2 little ones that eat up your time and mental energy? And of course you’d need your spouse to be on board, too.
I certainly understand what you are saying!!!