A Longing for Belonging
When life gets stressful and worrisome to the point where I feel like I need a change, particularly an improvement in our financial situation, I start searching the real estate listings to see if one of those homes for sale houses the solutions I’m looking for.
We bought our home a number of years ago when our children ranged in age from 2 years to high school age. It is in an amazing neighborhood! One that is far better than what we feel we deserve to live in. When we were looking for homes, we were banking on a raise my husband was confident he would receive which would make buying this home more easily affordable. However, the raise didn’t come, so money was tight, and it didn’t take long for us to feel like we had overextended ourselves. The struggle to survive financially caused us to feel like we didn’t belong in this great neighborhood—we weren’t good enough for it.
Amazingly, we still live in our home among the most amazing people, despite feeling about a million times that we could easily be homeless within a matter of months. Where we raised our five children, had more animals, and even had extra people living in our home at times, more than I care to admit, now I feel like we need a larger home. We need more space, inside and out, but we also need less debt. With the economy being what it is, it’s not uncommon for one or more child (with or without their own family), to have to boomerang back to spend time sharing our space with us. Rent is so expensive and being able to afford to buy their own homes is nearly impossible. Not that I mind having them there. I love my family and I’m happy to do what I can to keep them from becoming homeless, but it would be easier to be in a place where things and people didn’t feel so congested.
First world problems, right? Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for what we have and for the ability to be able to help our children and others to the degree we can. I only wish I could do more to help alleviate people’s suffering.
As we age, I think people often need to change their living conditions to better suit their abilities to navigate their surroundings. The need for a new layout including larger gathering rooms and one-level living is a common reason why older people, who love their neighborhoods to add on or remodel their existing homes. I have tried to recreate in my mind and even on paper how we could turn our multi-level home into something that could more effectively and enjoyably meet our current needs. Once I hit the proverbial brick wall with that, I turn once again to Realtor.com.
There have been a few times where I have almost been able to convince myself that the house I just walked through is the right one, only to think about all our stuff and not be able to mentally move it into the new potential space. So, number one, we have too much stuff, or we place too much value on things we probably don’t even need—a logical conclusion when I consider the last time much, or any of it was used. For the first twenty years of our marriage, I could easily answer the question asked by my husband or children, “where is my…fill in the blank? with directions that would lead them to exactly where the missing item could be found. But now, I don’t even remember where I set something five minutes ago.
I think another issue for us, as well as many other older people, is that change is hard, and often very scary. Changing homes and moving to unfamiliar surroundings can leave a person feeling lost, disconnected, disoriented, and can make them feel like they don’t belong. Sometimes the situations we find ourselves in almost force us to have to do things we’re uncomfortable with and would rather not do. For instance, as we age it can become more difficult to do the physical work of caring for and making repairs to our house and yard, or it might be too painful or dangerous to walk up and down stairs. I have jokingly said that I can hardly wait until I can move into assisted living so that someone will take care of me—take care of my meals, clean up after me, as well as provide social interactions and entertainment. I could get onboard with playing bingo, or card games, or doing puzzles all day. There would always be someone to talk to and it’s even possible that we could say the same things in every conversation, and it would never get old, because we might not remember that we’ve already had this conversation. BUT, I’m sure that if I were actually in the serious situation of making those very difficult emotional decisions, it wouldn’t really be that easy.
We become attached to our belongings and think that we need them in order to feel like we belong. As humans we find comfort in the familiar; our possessions, our routine, our friends and neighbors, etc. But, dare I say that what we’re really craving is connection, love, peace, and a sense of security. If those needs are met, we can live anywhere and still feel at home.