Our Chrysalis
I love our house. It’s small and simple, but it’s ours, and it’s all we need. I haven’t always felt this way, however.
My parents actually bought our house before it was ours. I remember driving up to it when it was purchased as their rental property. I almost shuttered when I first laid eyes on it; there on that little cul-de-sac boasted the oldest home on the block, a burnt-orange-stucco beast with dark brown trim. We walked up to it, as my parents gushed endlessly on what a great buy they had gotten. I looked around to make sure this was the great buy of which they spoke. I just couldn’t see beyond the surface to the good bones underneath. Plodding our way through dozens of ancient, prickly rose bushes and mismatched stepping stones, we inched around the house to the backyard; the eye sore we found was a stone graveyard of sorts. It was covered with multiple types of cacti, rock, scalloped-brick edging, dead rose bushes, and stone figurines. One-half of this rock cemetery was chain-linked around an empty, demolished doghouse and a statuette of a frog sitting cross-legged under an umbrella. I just couldn't bring myself to look past all of the hideous externals to see the sweeping desert views, the sprawling foothills and cavernous blue skies just beyond us. And though we weren’t given the chance to see the inside, as my folks didn’t yet have the keys, all I remember is peering skeptically through the old windows, shivering, and muttering something like, “I wouldn’t live in this house as a ghost.”
Famous last words.
Funny how the Lord tends to make irony out of your life, especially when you think you know things. At the time my parents bought this house, we were still living a couple hours’ drive away in the middle of Orange County, Eric was still safely supplied with a well-paying job, and no thought had crossed our minds about moving two hours out to the middle of this desert my parents called home. In just a matter of months, though, facing layoff with a soon-to-resign-from-teaching, 8-month-pregnant wife, Eric found himself applying to multiple districts in the greater Los Angeles area. Without even the benefit of an interview in an overly flooded teaching market, Eric tentatively slipped an application into the little school district here where my folks live, right before we were to embark on an end-of-August camping trip. We were pleasantly surprised when our camping trip was cut short as Eric made promises to return early for an interview. Within a couple days after the interview, we got the call. We were moving.
Then we began the process of combing through properties and listings, not five minutes from where he would start work in less than a week. Nothing stood out to us, however; nothing screamed, “I’m the home for you!” Nothing spoke to our hearts. The home that was at first intended as my parents’ rental was now my parents’ primary residence, as they were beginning the process of building their own home and were putting their former property up for sale.
Eric and I were given numerous opportunities to stay overnight in our would-be home, as we spent many weekends with them in this house over summer vacation. And after weeks of pouring through open houses that remained appallingly silent to our hearts, it became clear that this home was speaking to us – or at least to Eric. I remained on the fence toward this rock-graveyard home, even after my parents had spent the last couple of months gutting the insides of the ‘70s. Eric had the vision, however, as he often does, so we bought it from my parents, who graciously moved back into their original house, slightly but gladly displaced by our love of their home.
After four years and multiple layers of paint, both inside and out, a bathroom remodel, relandscaping the backyard and front, and countless hours of sweat equity, this beast has been a metamorphosis of sorts; it’s become the chrysalis that hatched our dream home, our simple butterfly, and I am glad Eric held fast to the vision because now I can hardly imagine leaving it.
My parents actually bought our house before it was ours. I remember driving up to it when it was purchased as their rental property. I almost shuttered when I first laid eyes on it; there on that little cul-de-sac boasted the oldest home on the block, a burnt-orange-stucco beast with dark brown trim. We walked up to it, as my parents gushed endlessly on what a great buy they had gotten. I looked around to make sure this was the great buy of which they spoke. I just couldn’t see beyond the surface to the good bones underneath. Plodding our way through dozens of ancient, prickly rose bushes and mismatched stepping stones, we inched around the house to the backyard; the eye sore we found was a stone graveyard of sorts. It was covered with multiple types of cacti, rock, scalloped-brick edging, dead rose bushes, and stone figurines. One-half of this rock cemetery was chain-linked around an empty, demolished doghouse and a statuette of a frog sitting cross-legged under an umbrella. I just couldn't bring myself to look past all of the hideous externals to see the sweeping desert views, the sprawling foothills and cavernous blue skies just beyond us. And though we weren’t given the chance to see the inside, as my folks didn’t yet have the keys, all I remember is peering skeptically through the old windows, shivering, and muttering something like, “I wouldn’t live in this house as a ghost.”
Famous last words.
Funny how the Lord tends to make irony out of your life, especially when you think you know things. At the time my parents bought this house, we were still living a couple hours’ drive away in the middle of Orange County, Eric was still safely supplied with a well-paying job, and no thought had crossed our minds about moving two hours out to the middle of this desert my parents called home. In just a matter of months, though, facing layoff with a soon-to-resign-from-teaching, 8-month-pregnant wife, Eric found himself applying to multiple districts in the greater Los Angeles area. Without even the benefit of an interview in an overly flooded teaching market, Eric tentatively slipped an application into the little school district here where my folks live, right before we were to embark on an end-of-August camping trip. We were pleasantly surprised when our camping trip was cut short as Eric made promises to return early for an interview. Within a couple days after the interview, we got the call. We were moving.
Then we began the process of combing through properties and listings, not five minutes from where he would start work in less than a week. Nothing stood out to us, however; nothing screamed, “I’m the home for you!” Nothing spoke to our hearts. The home that was at first intended as my parents’ rental was now my parents’ primary residence, as they were beginning the process of building their own home and were putting their former property up for sale.
Eric and I were given numerous opportunities to stay overnight in our would-be home, as we spent many weekends with them in this house over summer vacation. And after weeks of pouring through open houses that remained appallingly silent to our hearts, it became clear that this home was speaking to us – or at least to Eric. I remained on the fence toward this rock-graveyard home, even after my parents had spent the last couple of months gutting the insides of the ‘70s. Eric had the vision, however, as he often does, so we bought it from my parents, who graciously moved back into their original house, slightly but gladly displaced by our love of their home.
After four years and multiple layers of paint, both inside and out, a bathroom remodel, relandscaping the backyard and front, and countless hours of sweat equity, this beast has been a metamorphosis of sorts; it’s become the chrysalis that hatched our dream home, our simple butterfly, and I am glad Eric held fast to the vision because now I can hardly imagine leaving it.
Comments
Some day will we say this about marriage!!?? haha. j/k
cj