Step by Step

Happiness step 1 – buy a new laptop or figure out how to make our current laptop not take six full minutes to power on and open up a word document. 

Happiness step 2 – stand up for myself. Find out what my work place policy is for pay increases and do something about it. 

Happiness step 3 – sign up for a creative writing class at the local college. Stop feeling like my mind is turning to mush. No matter how much writing I do at work, I still don’t feel like I’m exercising my true potential. 

Happiness step 4 – find some friends I like. 

Happiness step 5 – do these steps. 

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Scott and I were very close to buying a house. We put in an offer on a place in North Douglas – where we want to live – the sellers put in a counter offer. And then we pulled out. I said the price wasn’t low enough for our needs. Which is essentially true. What’s also true is that I don’t love it. I want to be able to – if not love, then – really, really like a place we buy to call home. A place we intend to start a family in. A place that we’d plan to stay in for at least ten years, if not longer. 

Buying a house is like joining a club. It’s pledging one’s allegiance to Juneau. It’s saying – what so many have before – yes, Juneau is the place I want to be in right now and for a long, long time. It’s saying, while I may not necessarily feel like I fit in, I want to fit in. I want to plant roots and grow and see my as-yet-to-be-born children grow. It’s saying I want my family to be part of Juneau’s family. 

And maybe that’s what’s holding me up. This feeling like we don’t actually have a family here. Of course, neither Scott or I have blood family here, but we don’t have a big enough friend family either, a network of people who would help no matter what.

There are things to discount and write off as not necessary. I don’t think friendship is one them. 

Things are supposed to happen naturally; that’s when life is at its best. A natural flow of events and occurrences somehow leading into the next, unplanned but feeling as if they were somehow meant to be. Can home buying fall into that category? Can something so forced and contrived – a house – possibly feel like that? I think it can. I really do. Even in Juneau.

The other thing that’s holding me up – this feeling that money is a barrier. Like if we had more, it would allow us to be happier because we’d have more choice in what house to buy. I’ve been successful for most of my life never feeling like that, never feeling that lack of money could hold me back from doing something. Never feeling that not having enough was a problem. Whatever I needed to do (college through scholarships and loans) or wanted to do (travel through simple saving up) – happened. 

I guess I’m entering a new phase of life where everything seems more and more connected to money and dependent upon how much we have. Buying a house, traveling, healthcare, the thought of having kids. Am I dense that I didn’t see all of this coming? Or just in denial? Denial. I just didn’t want to believe it, that someday it would actually be about money, not just to other people, but to me. I have to start caring and not just caring enough to be frugal (because I’ve been frugal basically all my life) but caring in the sense that it will factor into what kind of life my as-yet-to-be-born child has. It’s not like I all of a sudden believe that money equals happiness, but I’m starting to see that money factors into permanence and commitment. 

I wanted to write to make myself feel better about not taking the house because it’s haunting me that we may have made the wrong decision. It’s worked somewhat. I’ve likely taken after my mom in being a complete worrier. Perhaps writing about it will allow me to sleep better. I know it’s not the right house at this particular time. I believe a home – where one plants roots – can be a natural thing.

I also wanted to get that list in writing. Because maybe then I will do it.