Committed

I have finally found the desire and inspiration to begin reading again. I used to be such a book worm, devouring book after book -- I think as an adolescent I kept the high school library in business single handedly :-p

But when I went off to college, reading for pleasure took a back seat to school work and partying.  My attention to novels was dismal.  And ever since then, it has really been a struggle to return to my reading ways.  That is, until I found a used book store here in town!  50 cents for paperbacks, $1 for hardbacks!!!!  And you can sell back books and get 50 cents in store credit.  Can we say heaven?!  I've already spent so much money there... LoL.  My to-read stack is quite tall at this point.

The book that I am currently reading is Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's a story of a woman who suddenly finds herself facing marriage when she and her fella were completely content with just co-habitating.  After a terrible divorce, neither of them are exactly excited about this development.  So Elizabeth kicks into research mode, deciding to learn as much as she can about the institution of marriage.

I'm loving this book for so many reasons.  Mostly because Elizabeth is not going into marriage with rose colored glasses on.  She knows that there is something about the ceremony that changes things, that changes the relationship, that can take things from simple and easy to complicated and hard.  A reality that I am personally going through, except I wasn't prepared.  I wasn't prepared for how much I would struggle with becoming a wife and the pressures that history/society/myself have put on my shoulders.  I wasn't prepared for the irritations, moods, frustrations, and just how different Daniel and I are.  Yes, I was totally naive to the institution of marriage.

As a result of my naivette, I've gotten some things twisted.  And this book by Gilbert is really helping me to look at marriage with a different point of view.  The cross-cultural and historical truths about marriage are not only interesting, but they really put things into perspective.  For example, I have learned that in Western society, we place a huge amount of stress that our spouse be our everything -- our best friend, our confidant, our protector, our inspiration, our comedic relief, our workout partner, our chore partner...  But that in so many other cultures, that stress isn't there.  The spouse is the spouse.  There aren't any expectations, so there aren't any disappointments.

Now granted, I am only about 1/3 of the way through this book.  But just reading the first 80 pages, I've let go of so many of my demands and expectations of Daniel.  Demands and expectations that might be "fair" if we were to split the household duties 50/50, but they aren't fair in the sense that they are things that are important to me but he really could care less about.  Why am I trying to force him to care about something he really doesn't care about?  Dumb.  So dumb.

It's requiring a lot of humility on my part, and a whole lot more physical labor on my part (hello more household chores), but if doing that will decrease my irritation/frustration and improve our relationship, then so be it.  Marriage is sacrifice, right?

And instead of depending on him to be my everything -- I've decided to depend on him less for my emotional needs.  Pause for gasping...  Men don't usually want to talk for hours about every little thing.  They just aren't interested, and their attention span just isn't that long.  So again, why am I trying to force something he doesn't care about?  Instead, I'm spending more time with my girlfriends, who do care, who will listen attentively, and who will understand my distress/concern and be able to help me sort through things.  Less annoyance for my husband.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this book, as I hope it will continue to educate me and inspire me to improve my marriage.

So many times my struggles with anxiety get the better of me. So many times imaginary fears and scenarios feel more real than reality does. So quickly can my mind spiral into worse case scenario.

It's worse when I'm tired. When I'm stressed. When I'm lonely. When I'm out of my routine. All of which I am tonight. Bad news bears.

As a result, I feel extremely separated. Isolated. Unloved. Less than. Depressed.
All of those are false feelings about my reality, yet the blues/depression remain.

I hate this about myself.

We Can't Afford Perfect

It's crazy to me how things work out.

My last post I shared about how frustrated we were getting about house hunting.  We found the "perfect" house but couldn't afford it.  We've looked at countless houses in the last two months, houses ranging from city homes to country homes.  Old homes to new homes.  Fixer uppers, mostly.

But after looking at the "perfect" house and cementing what our budget truly is, then spending some time in prayer (well, I did at least), a seed was planted in my heart. That seed was a house that we saw among the first houses that we looked at.  At the time, we had written that house off because it didn't have a fireplace and because it didn't have that it factor that we were looking for.  It was a fine house, nothing wrong with it, but we just weren't sure. But after two months, we finally had the experience under our belt.  We've seen what's available in our budget.  We've seen what you get in our budget.  And most of it is crap.  So when we went to look at this house on Saturday night, we were able to see the house with fresh eyes.  Eyes that had the experience and knowledge that wasn't there the first time.  And it was a whole new experience.

So we put an offer in. LoL.
We have a verbal agreement with the seller, but we aren't officially under contract until we get the paperwork, which will hopefully be today!

Is it perfect? No. It doesn't have a fireplace.  It will need a new deck.  It will eventually need a new HVAC unit.  Lots of paint (it's painted like a beach house lol).

But if there's one thing that I've learned, our budget won't get us perfect.

House hunting is the pits.

So can I just say that house hunting is over rated?  We've been looking for about two months now, which is not abnormal of a time period, but we are just getting to the point where we feel like we don't know anything anymore.

Our list of wants in house are: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a fireplace, a garage or outbuilding for Daniel's motorcycle, a dining room that will accommodate our existing dining room furniture, outdoor living area (deck or front porch), not on a main road/neighborhood feel, and charm.

I had no idea that such basic requirements would prove to be so difficult to find.

And I definitely had no idea just how expensive it gets so quickly.  We've gotten to the point where we've decided we just can't live in the city limits. Taxes are just too high which makes our budget even smaller.  And properties outside of the city limits that are not on main/busy roads that are in our price range are very few and far between.

We found a beautiful, perfect home.  But it was 20k above our original budget, and although we were pre-approved from the bank for that amount, there was no way we would be able to make it work and maintain financial security.  No way.  You want to talk about heart breaking having to walk away from the perfect house...

Are our standards too high?
Are we not meant to own a home?
Are we being too picky?

I feel so bad for our realtor... I hope and pray that he isn't getting exacerbated with us and knows that we aren't trying to jerk him around.  He knows we're first time home owners, so he's probably used to it.  But I still feel bad.

I am so grateful for where we live now. But it is not ours. We're so ready to have a place that's ours.

Prayers over our hunt would be greatly appreciated...