Accepting The Crack In The Foundation

On Sunday, Dustin and I celebrated two years as homeowners. As you do, I posted a Then/Now shot of our house. Wonderful and beautiful, right? Well, let me tell you the whole story.

Last week wasn't one of my favorites as a homeowner. What they don't tell you about being a home owner What they do tell you about being a homeowner, but you think, "Oh, it can't be like that!" is that home ownership can be exhausting. These past few months have really pushed my emotional limits as a mortgage paying human. In what became a comedy of errors, we spent much of our summer navigating an issue. Then, just as we thought we were through, and life in our home was back to normal, last week was yet another unexpected bump in the road. For me, it was just too much. To the point that there may have been an ugly cry sobfest or five in there.

You see, we have an issue with our foundation. When I realized it was our foundation, I went to the extremes. I catastrophize like a boss y'all, so you can only imagine what I came up with as we figured out the issue. 

Some phone calls (and sobs from me) later, we realized that it's just a crack in the foundation. While it sounds extreme, it turns out it's an easy-ish fix. I mean, like all house things, it costs money, but it is a far simpler remedy than the levels I went to on my initial (and comically uninformed) assessment. Right now, we're living with the crack in the foundation. We recognize it's there, have plans to get it fixed, but for right now, we just acknowledge we've got the issue. 

I tell you this to say that after my ugly cries and frustrations (because in addition to the house, there's some other "stuff" I've been navigating that only adds to the stress), I realized we've all got those cracks in the foundation. And yes, this is part of the story where I shift to an analogy about this all.

It's easy for me to acknowledge and share all those happy pictures of how well things are going. I can easily filter the yucky part(s) of life out, and I do - Goodness, we all do. It's harder for me to tell you about the cracks that are there. However, at the same time, there's such relief in sharing that part of the story. You see, we've all got those cracks. The more we talk about them, the better we feel. The more we get to hear, "I've been there, too." Today, I'm telling you I have a crack in my (literal and figurative) foundation. It's nothing that's going to stop me from living my life, but I'm coming to realize the freedom in telling you that it's there.  

Some days I ugly cry. Some days I only sort of cry. On those same days, I generally also laugh and smile. I don't have my life all together, and I have come to terms that I never fully will - After all, no one does. The joy I am coming to find is in the journey of the attempt.The joy comes in living authentically - cracks and all.