I have a confession to make: If you and I are friends and you have at some point invited me over to your house, I can admit with some certainty that I have walked into your house, done a quick estimate of your square footage and number of bedrooms/bathrooms, admired your updates and decor, and left feeling jealous and dissatisfied. I've driven away thinking the same toxic thoughts that have gone through my brain a thousand times in the last few years: I don't know ANYONE else who has to share one tiny bathroom with her husband and two kids. I don't know ANYONE else who has such a small, old house in such an ugly neighborhood. Why am I the only one who has to put up with this injustice?
A couple years ago, Trey and I thought we were on the brink of building a home. We put our house on the market... and it sat. And sat. The few people who came to look at it voiced the same concerns we had: it's too small. I was praying the house would sell, but at the same time, I was praying that if this wasn't the right timing, our house wouldn't sell. Our house never sold. We finally took it off the market because I was exhausted from months and months of keeping it in pristine cleanliness while homeschooling two very messy children. (I distinctly remember one particularly frustrating day when we were in the middle of our schoolwork and I got a call that a realtor would be showing the house to someone in twenty minutes. I threw all of our books, papers, pencils, crayons, rulers, math blocks, and science supplies in a closet, speed-cleaned the kitchen, and rushed the kids out to the car where they finished getting their shoes on while I peeled out of the driveway. Minutes later, it started raining and the couple decided not to come look at the house after all.)
On the other hand, a tiny house comes with a tiny mortgage payment. I've only worked part-time since Perrin was born, and Trey took a new job with a pay cut about a year ago, and yet we've never truly struggled financially, nor have we ever gone into debt.
Our tiny house
has allowed us to enjoy life in ways that we wouldn't be able to if we
were stuck under the burden of a house we could barely afford. We've been able to take vacations, remodel our kitchen and bathroom, and give to our church and others in need. Our house is a haven filled with good memories, complete with a huge backyard for the kids to play in and situated in a safe neighborhood where we take walks as a family nearly every day. What more do we need? Would a bigger house really make me happy, or would it simply cause me to find something else to be discontent about?
I'm not going to lie--I still have plenty of moments of discontent. Sunday mornings are the worst when we're all trying to get ready in the bathroom at the same time. We have NO privacy in this house. I'm used to one (or two! or three!) people barging in on me while I'm trying to take a shower. But I'm slowly (sloooooowly) learning to be grateful. I'm grateful that our house is easy to clean. I'm grateful that our house keeps us from buying things we don't need (because if we don't have a place to put it, we don't buy it). I'm grateful that I can talk to my kids and hear them no matter where I'm standing in the house. I'm thankful for the memories we're building here--huddling around backyard bonfires, reading books on the deck, walking to the nearby field to launch rockets, working together on Saturday mornings to clean the house or rake the leaves or plant new flowers. Our house is just a house, but it's allowed us to have a lifestyle that fits our values and has protected us from a lot of unnecessary stress.
Maybe one of these days I'll be able to walk into your beautiful house, compliment your fireplace or granite counter tops or tray ceilings or covered patio, then climb into my car with a genuine smile, thinking that you and I are both so very blessed to have a wonderful place to call home. I think I'm almost there.
