Trading a house for a home

If you're not familiar with my adventures in restoration, read my love story post first. Actually, even if you ARE familiar... go re-read that post. It's good context! (I'll wait...)

If you're the kind of person who moves into a house and never changes the paint colors, this post won't resonate with you.  But for the rest of you, you know how it feels to put a little bit of your style into a house. Maybe you've stripped wallpaper or pulled back the carpet to find hardwood floors hidden underneath. A few hours worth of work and you've fixed, cleaned or replaced something. You've made it better.

I bought my last house when I was a young, optimistic, single woman. Over the next four years, I would repair or replace every single wall, ceiling, floor, door, light fixture, electrical outlet and piece of trim. That's no exaggeration.  I gutted all 4 bathrooms and rebuilt them from the floor up.  I gutted and rebuilt the kitchen. I put in all new lighting, floors and major systems (HVAC, roof, electrical panel). I took down walls, fixed beams, and sistered joists. I had help from friends, family, and a few contractors. All told, I spent 208 weekends working on that house.

I saved the place.   And then, not long after I finished, I decided to sell it.

I think a decaying house is like a bad marriage. It takes years of neglect to create the problems, but with hard work, you can almost always fix it. And I believe in fixing what can be fixed. Saving what other people deem "a lost cause."  But, imagine spending 4 years in couples counseling.  After 4 years of hard work, you wake up one morning, look at your partner and realize you have the exact marriage you've always wanted. It's perfect and you're content.  And then you ask for a divorce.

That's exactly what I did.  I sold my house in January of 2014. I just went back for the first time a few weeks ago. Driving up to the house, I felt so many emotions.  The new owners painted the exterior, replacing the sunny yellow with a shade of grayish blue. I'd like to tell you the color is all wrong, but in fact, it looks lovely.  Other than that, it's exactly the same as the day I left.  But, what was once the "love of my life" was now, just a house.

That's the lesson, I think.  A house is just a house. It's 4 walls and a roof.  It keeps you warm and safe and dry. I realize now that after 4 years of restoring that house, I loved it, but it still wasn't a home.  A house becomes a home when it's filled with love, family, memories, laughter, tears, fights, make-ups, dreams and hopes. A home holds all the beauty and love and heart that you bring to it.

After I sold my house, I traveled Europe for 3.5 months. Read about my European meltdown here. And then moved back to Michigan.  I fell madly in love and my life changed forever.   We moved to Chicago and we've created a home filled with laughter, the pitter-patter of little feet, with squeals of joy, family dinners, fights, make-ups, forts, bedtime stories and long discussions about our future.

Rich and I will buy a house soon enough, a place for our family to put down roots. But now I know...anywhere I go with these boys, I'm home.

Gratitude, the Italian Riviera and Yvette

I've driven thousands of miles across Europe in my travels.  This week, I drove along the Italian Riviera and it was one of my all-time favorite drives.

In a lot of places I've driven in the last 2 months, the radio is full of static and the near-constant tunnels make the radio useless. Without radio to distract me, I spend a lot of time thinking. It's nice to be completely free for the first time in my adult life. I don't have a job to worry about... no house, bills, or any traditional life stressors to weigh on my mind. It's been wonderful to be away from TV, the news, my iPhone, iPad and laptop.  I've been alone with my thoughts for a big portion of this trip and that had been wonderful.

On Monday afternoon, I dropped my parents at the Nice airport and drove up the Italian Riviera towards San Remo.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day...the water a beautiful shade of blue, the sky dotted with perfect, puffy white clouds.  I was looking around at all the beauty of the Italian Riviera, the sweeping vistas, the mountains, the villages and I was overcome by the beauty. I found myself wanting everyone in the world to see this amazing place.

I started thinking about all the people who will never see this place. And tears were suddenly streaming down my cheeks. I thought of factory workers, teachers who spend their money on school supplies, single mothers and hardworking parents with tight budgets for whom travel (let alone international travel) is cost prohibitive. I started thinking about all the people around the world who would never have the money to travel the way I have, or would never be able to take the time off work to do so. And then I thought of all the people in history who had lived their entire lives and died without ever seeing the beauty that I was seeing.

My grandma and grandpa for example, died without ever seeing that view. As I drove, that made me so inexplicably sad.  My grandpa worked his entire life and never visited Europe, let alone Italy or the Riviera!  One of my moms closest friends is Italian and she's never seen that view.  I want nothing more than to bring her here... to show her this place.  The stretch of land between Nice, France and San Remo Italy is perhaps the most gorgeous place on the face of this earth.

As I drove along, I felt the most overwhelming sense of sadness and gratitude. Perhaps for the first time on this 13 week trip, I truly, fully realized the gravity of what I’m doing. Very few people in the world are ever able to do something like this.  I was suddenly keenly aware of how lucky I am. And I felt tiny, small and insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe.  I felt unworthy somehow. I just couldn't believe that I get to do this...to see this place...to take this trip.  Me!  I was full of joy.

As I drove, I thought about that all of us have lives that include sorrow and joy. My sister, for example, would love to travel as I've been able to.  But, along with that sorrow, she has the incredible joy of her marriage and their large family of 6 children!  And while I have the wonderful opportunity to travel, the freedom I enjoy is because I am single and don't have a family of my own. That carries with it some inherent sorrow. Neither life is right or wrong, better or worse. They're just different.  I know my sister wants me to find a great love of my own, get married and have children. And I want her to have the ability to see the world as I've been able to.

She and I work very hard to simply understand that we have different joys and sorrows in our lives. (Sometimes we're successful, sometimes not so much!) But, we try to share the joys and sorrows with each other, understanding that we may never truly identify with the peaks and valleys in each others lives.  But trying is all that matters.

I spent that afternoon driving and thinking, finding clarity in dark corners of my mind I normally avoid by grabbing my iPhone or singing along to Tom Petty on the radio.

That's what the italian Riviera was for me. A place so beautiful, a moment so perfect that I was completely overcome by it.  My heart was so full of love and gratitude, I just wanted to share it with everyone.

You'll notice this post has no photos. That's intentional.  No image would ever capture what I saw that day driving up the coast.  But...try to imagine it.  Soft blue sky, puffy clouds, deep blue water, gorgeous towns spilling down the craggy cliffs towards the Mediterranean.  Warm air blowing in the car windows and an empty road stretching out before you.

Close your eyes and imagine a place that puts you back in touch with your soul.