I'm sitting on the couch in my living room, just minding my own business, and drinking a glass of cheap red wine (my favorite) when all of a sudden I started to put into words the thoughts and feelings I've been having lately.
I almost posted these thoughts as a facebook status or made a comment on twitter but then I remembered that I have a blog and that it's a mostly personal blog, since we barely keep up with it and don't have a lot of followers. haha So I can voice my opinion and not really worry about what other people think of it because no one reads this blog! I bet Anna herself won't even see this for months. (Speaking of Anna, she comes home March 1st! AHHHHH)
So now is the time for confession. It all started when I was in elementary school and got my first disc of Sims. No, not that early version where you dropped houses places and made a little town, the one where you made your own characters, paid money, bought a plot of land, built your own house, then proceeded to play out your little people's lives.
But my favorite part of that game was always building the houses. I used to spend hours building and customizing my house and by the time I was ready to put my people inside, I was done playing. I'll admit on here (but no where else) that I used to cut houses out of the newspaper and put them in a little box on a shelf in my room. I thought of them as the future houses I would one day buy. I can remember some of them to this day and realized how cookie-cutter they were but I was impressed by how big they looked and wanted them simply for that fact. I love watching House Hunters, even if it is "fake", I love house hunting and demanded Brooke and Sam take me while they were searching for their future home, and now at the age of (almost) 23 I am still obsessed.
When Brooke and Sam really started their house hunt Max and I caught the house hunting bug or, at least, I did. I remember dog sitting for B+S while they were away and looking up houses online. Max and I were hanging out in their living room watching TV but I was hooked to my computer screen and favoriting my top choices. When B+S moved out, we thought we would move into the duplex, but that didn't work out and we moved in with them in their amazing home. But living there wasn't what we thought it would be and we dreamed of having a place of our own. Again, I was hooked to my computer searching page after page of ideal houses we could rent or own. We actually got off our asses and met a real-estate agent at one of these houses and did a walk through! It was my first real taste of actual house hunting, for us, not for someone else! That didn't work out and we ended up renting my grandpa's house from my mom. A true blessing even if 2 weeks later we lost our grandpa. It has been so amazing to have a house, to ourselves, and one that came fully furnished and stocked! We seriously do appreciate all that we have, even if we don't say it enough, or at all. Sorry...
But time is running out for us here at 941 Deborah Ave. My mom needs to sell the home soon and we will need to find a place that can hold two adults, two dogs, two ferrets and room to grow. Plus a hamster but he doesn't take up much room or do anything at all for that matter. So here I am, on my couch, minding my own business and searching through page after page of houses because apartment living just isn't in the future for us, I'm afraid. In the beginning, Max wanting to buy a house was impractical (and maybe it still is). He worked part time and I worked full time but we were still only bringing in a small smalllllll amount of money. I've since switched jobs but I make basically the same amount. Max has gotten more hours but that's not saying much. What really changed our minds was when he was nearing graduation of DePaul and applying for actual jobs. He just recently was hired for a 3 month internship that could turn into a job if he does well and if they still need him. We have been waiting a month and a half, maybe even two months, to hear about whether or not he got the job and just found out a week ago. He starts in the beginning of Feb. The pay raise for this internship is significant and if it turns into a full time job we will be better off than we've ever been.
And we really want to buy a house.
I know it's way to early to be house hunting but tell that to 21 year old me or 20 year old me or even 9 year old me. I love house hunting and I dream of my future house, literally. Anytime I go into anyone's home I envision what it would look like if I lived there. I'm obsessed, I say it now as I've said it before.
Now comes the real philosophical shit. Alongside future house hunting I always told myself I'd get the fuck out of Elgin, and Illinois for that matter, as soon as I could. My mom used to say (during my troublesome years) ((are those even over?)) "You just can't wait to move away from here, can you?" No, I couldn't. But look... here I am 10 years later. Still in stinky old Elgin, still in Illinois. Although, now that I'm older and know a bit more about the state I live in I realized not all of Illinois is like this. I wouldn't mind still living in Illinois just, maybe, more South. Their weather is a bit more tame there and landscaping is more pleasing to the eye. I just want to ease away from Chicago and it's suburbs.
But Max's new internship is in Chicago and, if it turns into a full time job, he will have to stay around this area. Now, this isn't Max's dream job, but it's his first big boy job. If it works out, we plan on sticking around here for a few years. That was never what I wanted but I'm starting to realize, as I grow up, that this might be better. My first niece or nephew will be born sometime in March and I will want to be around for them plus Brooke and Sam want to have a baby soon too. We have money and live an extremely comfortable life, we may hate the cold and the winter but to have my dad come shovel our driveway sunday morning because he wants to is something we wouldn't have if we move 1,000 miles away. I'm scared to live too close to our comfort zone but at the same time if we lose the beginning stages of our families lives, what would we have for ourselves? We would be off on our own watching our family grow up through a computer screen.
It scared me to think I may not be going any where anytime soon and it scared me to see myself becoming this housewife, but the thing is that I have come to terms with what my life is right now. Does that mean it will always be this way? Maybe. But maybe not. I don't know what the future holds and as long as we still look to each other and say, "One day..." I can have hope that we will live extraordinary lives (maybe not to you) but to us.
Another thing is in our family (Flores) we don't talk about feelings much. But I'll tell you this: I used to worry that my kids would look at me and think I'm boring. That they would say "Aunt Anna is so cool and has done so much, what have you done?" I know I'm the youngest child but sometimes I feel like the middle one because I feel as if I were in the middle of Liz and Anna's lives. One side of me wants comfort and home (like Liz) while the other part wants to roam and be free (like Anna). But I accept the person that I am. I feel that I have enough control over my mind to make myself move away one day but I'm practical too. And I don't think that that's bad. I understand where my life is right now and I'm going to go with it.
It feels so much better to get this out without bothering someone. I need to say these words, but not force them upon someone, and get them out of my head. I've struggled with my own mind before and for a while, in the beginning, this was getting me down. I fretted over what my life is and would be. But I feel better now. I'm mastering my own view of myself and my life and I understand it more. It even feels good to type. When was the last time I actually typed a full paragraph? Ahhhh.
Well, now I've moved to the bed with my man and my babies (dogs) and I'm going to rest easy. One last thought I have to share is that, it seems, as if everyone in the world is jealous of someone else's life. I may look to Anna and Kaley and wish I could have so much freedom or look to Liz and Joe and wish I could have a baby, but I just need to focus on my own life and make it something I think is worth living.
_Marybeth_
