We’re Buying a House!!!

I’m not going to lie, despite trying to embrace the experience of living tiny and having a smaller impact on the earth, I still get a twinge in my stomach when yet another friend or person in my life tells me they are buying a house. The bitterness, comparison, resentment, and jealousy arise, and suddenly I am discontent with my life and telling myself what a failure I am because I am not doing the same thing or I don’t have the same thing. 

Living in Southern California brings its own set of challenges in this area, but it’s hard not to compare all the other “successful” people my age buying homes and establishing themselves. I feel so far from it and it seems near impossible with our current circumstances in life and it hits me hard. I want my own home. I want what I grew up with. I feel like all my life I was told you work to get a home. A home brings stability and is the epitome of success. Having a home is a good investment and renting is a waste of money. Your future is in having a home. Owning a home is what truly shows you are successful. These are the voices I grew up with in my home, community, and culture. 

The thing is, even though I truly value and believe in living tiny, having less of an impact on the earth, and making life about experiences and not things, being born into a family and a culture where your value is determined by what you own, I am constantly fighting this eternal battle. The American dream is a suburban home with a white picketed fence. My childhood home came complete with a white picket fence and interior ripped from a Crate & Barrel or Magnolia homes magazine. I am surrounded by this American Dream, owning a house, Fixxer Upper mentality, and society. Like seriously how many home shows are there on TV now.  It is constantly in my face with all the interior design magazines, home stores, and Instagram feeds and stories showcasing home after home interior. My beliefs are constantly being challenged. What mindset am I actually living into? Just because I have strong ideas about what’s really important doesn’t mean that a lifetime of habituated beliefs and value systems just go away. 

I lived in the same house my entire life (0-18), and my parents invested their time and money making it into their dream house. The house is beautiful, customized to fit them, and big. There is nothing wrong with owning a home and investing in that home to make it a nice place; however, I have noticed that the home can often become a status symbol, a point of pride, and even arrogance. We use our homes to show off, feel good about ourselves, and get praise from those around us. When someone buys a home their worth is somehow elevated - like that is the achievement of a lifetime, but is it really. 

As my grandparents have gotten older and had to move out of their homes, the places they lived their whole lives and invested in, I see reality take place. They don’t get to take their home with them. Homes are temporary housing. Simply a holding place and even in my tiny home, I need to be reminded of that. Our pride, worth, and value is not in the things we own or that belong to us. Not even my son is mine to own and hold onto. The things we have are a gift, and sometimes a curse, but mostly an opportunity to use for the things that matter most. 

I want my home, whether owned or not, to be a place of gathering, community, safety, and acceptance for the people who cross our path and for my family. I can easily get preoccupied with how my home looks (I love design), buying all the right things and keeping it as clean as I possibly can with a toddler running around or I can really use it to create a beautiful life of connection. Yes, I do invest in my home, I take care of what I have, and I want it to be a nice and comfortable space, but not as a status symbol or a point of pride to show off, but as a place where people can safety gather, feel peace, and be present. My journey with our home is finding the right balance. And I am constantly needing to be reminded of the fact that life is not about what we own, but how we use what we have been given. 

I am learning to make the most of what we have, be creative, buy used, and repurpose what we have. It is a constant challenge and battle, which is partly why I stay off Instagram and cable TV. Living tiny forces me to really choose what is really important and what I don’t have room to keep. I am constantly decluttering and finding new ways to get the most out of our space and I want to create a culture that encourages the same. DIY, thrifting, hand-me-downs, and swap parties are the way to go, but so often when we are surrounded by people or sources of input (Instagram, media, shopping) that are showing what we could have, we get caught up in the compulsion to buy, have, and compare. I know I am not the only one who feels this way. I would even go as far as to say it is an epidemic in our society.