My entire life has been spent working to get more, gain more, achieve more. A better job will land me a better career and a better career will allow me more income and more income will someday lead us to a bigger, better home. Then, all of the sudden I had a thought…what if I don’t want a bigger home? What if I am totally good with the one I have now? What if I am secretly okay with staying here until our boy is well settled into his own life and then maybe even longer? What if we never move at all? What if this is where grand-babies come for weekend stays and where I finally learn to not kill the garden plants? What if…
I don’t know how to handle what if. I wrestle match almost daily with my insides and the two very strongly opinionated sides of myself. One which looks and sounds oddly like my mother. That’s the one that says work harder, go further, achieve more. I am not angry with that version of me at all. I know is comes from the good place that says “Don’t settle!” It’s the same side that says ‘you can have it all’ and ‘you can be the one from your little neighborhood that achieves the high-life.’ The problem is that I have this whole other me that is learning that settling may not be so bad. That settling may not be settling at all but hiding inside it of that phrase that makes people cring might actually be contentment. Hmmm…
I was raised by a good ol’ card carrying powerhouse career woman of the 80′s. That means she was product of the 60′s & 70′s and I respect the fact that everything she had she’d fought for with blood, with sweat and with tears. It is that woman who is so ingrained into every fiber of my being that not a day goes by that her imprint isn’t visibly stamped into it. I know that, not so long ago, women did not have so many options. I know that to not want it all seems like I am letting an entire generation of women down and disappointing the masses that fought so diligently for my right to choose this very moment. I feel the weight of my choice of self-discovery so deeply. I know now that I have made choices based on my loyalty to a cause that was not mine and I have chosen to please a voice in my head over my own happiness or contentment.
You see this old, little, less important house of mine has seen dreams cast and it’s seen plans scripted. It’s seen new career paths started and my little boy raised. It’s greeted those who sought refuge and it’s been the place I have wanted to run away from. It has heard the sound of tears and a marriage broken. And it’s watched as it was put back together again. It has held us as we sailed the mountain top and it’s hidden us away when the hurt was too much to see the light of day. It’s the house that God blessed us with and allowed us to keep through the tough times. It is the house that has molded us into a family with secret jokes and daily patterns and family rifts. It has seen love made, love built, love forgiven and love grown. So when the great ‘theys’ of the world try sell me their white washed dreams of bigger and better I don’t know if they can really match up to what I have already been given. I am not sure that another place in the world will ever be able to hold what these walls have.
So working backward, I guess if I don’t need the bigger, better house then I don’t really need the extra income and then I won’t have to pursue the important career or the big job move or even the chance to work myself to the bone to achieve, gain or want more. I guess what I am left with is just what I have. This little ‘ol house and me. I guess this is what they mean by ‘as good as it gets.’
And I’m good with that. Well at least half of me is.