These Are The Things I Have Learned

It is a quiet misery to renovate a house.  Quiet because you don't want anyone to know you are miserable. You are too proud and too sure of yourself to admit to yourself and to others that you are just miserable about it all.  Miserable about the choices you have to make, miserable about the money you are spending and the time that is being consumed, add on the fact that you are suddenly very unsure of your choices and of your decision to go forward.  When you total everything up you become unsure of how much you really want this to happen anymore.  

It is difficult and it is not for the weak.  Once you get past the romance of the idea you realize that its not so much fun and it definitely is NOT romantic.   But then, you reason with yourself and others and find, just like in any good relationship you can make one of two choices.  You can run like a baby or you can sink your heels in, buck up and try to remember why you thought that this was a great idea to begin with. It had such promise. You loved it so much.  It was going to be a lasting relationship.  You loved its presence, its curves, its endurance.  Are you ready to walk away from all of the comfort and joy it can provide for you?

It is too bad you can't go on a couples retreat with your house and work out your differences.  I am very sure my house would have had a lot to say.  Mainly something about the language I used toward it and also the abuse I sometimes showed it.  But it wasn't going anywhere.  If I wanted out it was going to make me leave.  And quitting...well that's a word I don't handle very well.  So I decided to move forward and that is where we are.