The House I Could Already See
On building a life you love, and recognizing when the pattern begins to change.
There are some places you walk into and immediately know. You can’t always explain why. There’s no sensible list of reasons, no carefully calculated explanation. Something about the place speaks to you, and suddenly you can see possibilities that haven’t happened yet.
That’s how it was when I found our house.
We were living in the city then, and life wasn’t going particularly well. Our neighborhood was changing in ways I didn’t like. I wasn’t happy with the environment where my children were growing up. There were difficulties in my marriage, and I was looking for something different. I wanted room to breathe. More than that, I wanted room to build the kind of life I imagined for my family.
And then I found this house
It wasn’t some perfectly finished dream home. It had its problems, and there would eventually be plenty more of those than I could have imagined. But when I walked through it, I didn’t see what was there. I saw what could be.
I saw bedrooms filled with children. I saw a yard where they could run and play. I saw a swimming pool, a clubhouse, a trampoline, and gardens filled with flowers. There was a long trailer out back, and I immediately knew it could become a classroom. I saw patios and courtyards. I imagined big family barbecues, parties, children laughing, and the kind of gatherings where people stayed long after the food was gone. I could practically walk through a life that hadn’t happened yet.
The funny thing is, the house was already in escrow when I found it. I was terribly disappointed. I remember praying that somehow it would become available again. And then, to my astonishment, it did.
When I finally got to walk through it, I was practically running from room to room, announcing what everything would become. This bedroom would be for this child. That space could become something else. We could put the trampoline over there. The gardens could go here. I wasn’t thinking about whether other people would understand what I saw. I knew.
I went home with the paperwork, and Russ signed it without ever having seen the house. And just like that, we began another chapter.
Having a Vision and Living It
Of course, life has a way of reminding us that having a vision and living it are two entirely different experiences. There were repairs. So many repairs. Plumbing problems, roof problems, pool problems. Projects that took longer than expected. Things that broke just when we thought we had finally gotten ahead. There were difficult years, too. Some very difficult years. Not every memory made inside those walls is a happy one. I would be doing a disservice to my own life if I pretended otherwise.
But there was also so much beauty. We created that classroom, first in the trailer, and eventually in a building of its own. We put in the trampoline and surrounded it with flowers. We made gardens and pathways and places for children to explore. I even created a maze. Children would come over and tell us that our house was like a maze, which always amused me because that was rather the point. I wanted a place where childhood could feel like an adventure. And over the years, so much of what I had imagined while walking through that house became real. I had seen a life that didn’t exist yet, and little by little, we built it.
When the Dream Was Made for Someone Else
But here’s something I didn’t understand when I was younger.
You can build exactly the life you wanted and still reach a point where you want something different.
Not because the original dream was foolish. Not because the years were wasted. And certainly not because you failed. Sometimes the life you designed was made for a woman with different responsibilities, different energy, and different needs.
When our children were young, I wanted room for everything. Room for learning. Room for play. Room for gardens and parties and projects. Room for a whole childhood to unfold. And that is precisely what we created.
But the children are grown now. The house is still here, and so are the gardens, the pathways, the trees, the pool, and the never-ending list of things that need attention. Only now, it’s mostly Russ and me doing the work. The same spaces that once represented possibility sometimes represent another weekend of maintenance. Another pipe to repair. Another garden bed to weed. Another tree to trim. Another project that can’t wait much longer.
And I find myself thinking about what I want the next part of my life to look like.
I still love beautiful surroundings. I still love flowers and greenery and a lovely place to sit outside. I don’t want to stop appreciating beauty. I simply don’t want to spend quite so much of my life maintaining it. I’d like more time for experiences. More time with Russ. More afternoons when we can sit somewhere beautiful without immediately noticing six things that need fixing. Maybe that means a smaller home someday. Maybe it means a different landscape, a different arrangement, a different way of living. We haven’t figured it all out. And that’s all right.
Gratitude Doesn’t Require Us to Remain Unchanged
I’ve begun to understand something about the lives we create. We tend to think that once we’ve built something meaningful, we’re supposed to preserve it exactly as it is. We become the caretakers of decisions we made twenty or thirty years ago. We keep maintaining the old arrangement, even when our circumstances have changed. And sometimes we feel guilty for wanting anything different. After all, wasn’t this what we wanted? Didn’t we work hard to get here? Shouldn’t we simply be grateful?
Well, yes. We can be grateful. But gratitude doesn’t require us to remain unchanged.
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit as we’ve been exploring The Pattern at The Midlife Couturier. A pattern is designed for a particular fit. And when the measurements change, sometimes the pattern needs to change with them. The woman who walked through this house all those years ago needed something very different from the woman sitting here writing today. I love her for what she imagined. I’m proud of what she built. And I’m beginning to give the woman I am now permission to imagine something different.
Your Own House
That’s the part I hope you’ll consider for yourself. Maybe yours isn’t a house. Maybe it’s a career you worked desperately hard to establish. A business you built. A routine you created when your children were young. A role you’ve played in your family for so long that nobody remembers you might want something different. Maybe you’ve spent years making a particular life work. And perhaps, lately, you’ve begun wondering whether it still does.
You don’t have to make a dramatic decision today. You don’t have to tear everything down and start again. But you might begin by asking yourself a question:
If I were designing my life around the woman I am today, what would I make room for?
Not the woman you were twenty years ago. Not the woman everyone expects you to remain. The woman you are right now.
I don’t have all the answers about my own next chapter. For the moment, I still walk through my gardens. I still enjoy the beauty we’ve created. I still see the life I imagined all those years ago. But I’m also learning to look forward. And perhaps that’s what designing a life that fits really means. Not insisting that every pattern we’ve ever chosen must last forever, but giving ourselves permission to take new measurements.
With love from the atelier,
Alicia
The Midlife Couturier™
Tailor-Fit a Life You Love to Wake Up To™
