Notes on patience and perfection
Anyone who has seen me in a doctor’s waiting room or in the boarding area of a delayed flight or on hold for absolutely anything would not describe me as patient. I like things to be on time, but more specifically, I like things to happen on my timeline. And perhaps what that is really saying: I like things to be my way, and I like things to be my way immediately.
Earlier this year, my husband and I bought a house. It is a very nice house, located in a quiet and friendly suburban neighborhood about 20 minutes from the beach. It is easily three times bigger than our first apartment together in Brooklyn, a space we considered positively spacious (to be fair, our biggest priority in New York City real estate was literally just having one door that we could close). It has all the non-negotiables I wanted in a house: lots of natural light, a yard, bathrooms (plural!).
Here is the thing: it does not look like the homes of the lifestyle influencers I follow on Instagram, or like the light-filled apartments on the design blogs I read religiously, or the product photos of the West Elm website. You know the ones, with all those sleek white countertops and fiddle leaf figs and woven baskets casually filled with cashmere blankets.
I know very deeply that social media is not reality: I have seen first-hand the magic that a good stylist and an excellent photographer can work on a room, and I know that sometimes a giant mess (literally and figuratively) can rest just out of frame. I am also very aware of the things that make a house look like that: time, money, a vision—but mostly money. Side note: this article on HGTV and the recession is so, so, so interesting and thought-provoking.
Knowing all of that doesn’t stop me from striving for an unattainable perfection, or feeling bad that my house doesn’t look exactly like I want it to look—or more importantly, like I think my house should look.
Is this all sounding incredibly ungrateful? I know that it does. On my good days, I cringe when I think of how silly I’m being: we have a house that is safe and warm and comfortable, in an incredibly desirable place to live. But on my bad days, I see my oak cabinets and think: this is not how I want this house to look, and it is going to take so long (and so many dollars) until it does. This isn’t incredibly different than the way I sometimes feel about travel, or fashion, or lifestyle on social media: it can simultaneously make me feel not well traveled, not well dressed, not successful enough.
When I complain to my husband about all that is left to be done, he (very reasonably, I might add) reminds me of all we’ve accomplished already.
Buying a house is a huge investment in the future. But it’s also been an incredible exercise in patience in the pursuit of (impossible) perfection, a daily reminder that good things take time—and perhaps most importantly, that life doesn’t need to be photogenic to be good.
