This is my dream house. I lived there 12 years.

This was one of those wild-haired ideas I get. I passed by the house while traveling for work. It had a for sale sign in it. I was in no financial shape to buy another house. Besides, we had a house, a nice newish little house that was just right for the two of us.

I called my realtor anyway. Just to look. It was safely outside my price range. Actually, it was WAY outside my price range. “I just want to peek,” I said. My grandparents and some of my other relatives had a big old farmhouse like that and I’d like to soak up some of that atmosphere.”

The rest, as they say, was history. The house was a mess inside. It smelled of urine. The colors of paint they used were awful. Stuff, just stuff, was nailed to walls.

But… it sang to me anyway.

“What can you afford? Make an offer.” my realtor said. So I did, even though I was ashamed at how low it was. They took it though and suddenly we were moving from our nice neat, everything perfect little house to… this.

I loved living there. There were five acres of land. Woods behind the house, a large lawn. A creek, a swamp. Old outbuildings. Always something to do and always something to explore.  The rooms were huge. The light was good. There were nooks and crannies throughout. It was a giant canvas and a work in progress the whole time we were there. And there was space. So much space.   We could buy huge old antiques if we fell in love with them. We could buy all the art we wanted – there was a wall for everything.

It was historic. The original house was built in 1792. The Victorian wing was built in 1886. It was likely part of the underground railroad. We found old letters and other artifacts when we shoveled the place out to move in.

The rooms were huge. The light was good. There were nooks and crannies throughout. It was a giant canvas and a work in progress the whole time we were there. And there was space. So much space.   We could buy huge old antiques if we fell in love with them. We could buy all the art we wanted – there was a wall for everything. My ex-wife actually painted a mural along one full wall in the playroom.  She had a craft room. I had a library. My daughter had a bedroom larger than places I had lived when I was single.

Oh yeah. I mentioned my ex-wife. The marriage ended. It was painful. As divorces almost always are, it was messy. To keep things as stable as possible for the kids, I moved out and she stayed with my son and daughter.

I mourned the marriage. I mourned the day to day times with my kids. And I mourned the house. I hadn’t known it was my dream house when I bought it, but it had become that as children were born, as rooms were renovated. There were always plans for the next project, the next transformation.

And now, that was gone.

I ended up in an 800 square foot apartment in an old college building. I called it “the apartment under the stairs” because you had to go under the front stairs to get to my front door. Compared to my dream house, it was tiny, with tiny rooms. When the kids came to stay I slept on the sofa so they could have their own rooms. Some of my favorite antiques simply would not fit. Not at least, if I wanted to be able to walk through the rooms.

But it was perfect. I was healing. I was hurting. I didn’t have the energy to do all the work a big old farmhouse. I didn’t have the energy to dream and create and renovate. Here, I hardly had to do housecleaning. it was that small. And there was no yard work.

A year or two later, another apartment came available. It was larger – the kids and I could all have our own rooms, and I could have some of my antiques in it. This one was in an old jail, but the only signs of that bit of history were, if you looked closely, in the windows and on the underside of the floorboards, where you could see where the bars had been. It had a fireplace.

Best of all, it was across from the high school where my daughter was going to school. She could come over on Fridays (Game day) with her friends and fellow band members and crash.

I was healing. This place had potential. I carved out flower beds, the first house maintenance and fixing up I had done in a few years. Unlike the apartment under the stairs, where I had HAD to move because of the separation, this was a place I chose to live in. And there’s a big difference.

Then I moved to Vermont. I bought the house I lived in now. It was actually a duplex when I bought it. Within 24 hours, I was knocking out walls. I had a vision again. I had a place I could make in to my own again. It’s not big, but the way it is set up made it perfect when, not long after I moved up here, my daughter moved up. And after she finished college, my some came over.

They have their own space on the “other” side of the duplex. I have a room for a studio and a working office. The light, particularly after I knocked out a couple of walls, is great. The rooms are small, the yard is tiny (two-tenths of an acre), but right across the street is an old abandoned quarry to go walking in, a perfect place to ruminate and wander.

My kids still mourn the old house. But I’ve moved to a different place. It was not my dream house. It was, I came to understand, the house that held my dreams. My dreams then were involved in family, my (now ex) wife, and that house was a great place for all of that to happen. It was a time in my life that I was building – career, house, family, and it was a place that was ideal for a building time in life. Huge. Expansive. With room to do anything.

But in an odd way, the apartment under the stairs was a perfect place for the times as well. A tiny place to heal in without having to think about the space. Nice, but small, like my world became.

And the old jail? It came in my life at a time when I finally was crawling out of my shell. It gave me space at a time that on the personal front, I was just starting to think beyond myself again. Not exactly dream, but grow. It was big enough to hold me, and my kids, and even entertain a bit.

And the house I am in now? It is perfect for now. A good size. A flexible space that has adapted my kids comings and goings, to my need for different spaces like a studio for my art or a reading room when I want to get away from the media that pervades my son’s life. There is plenty of privacy and plenty of great space to be together or entertain. Oh yeah, and it was crazy inexpensive. Just like the first house, I made one of those ridiculous offers and it took. Inexpensive is good.

This is what I’ve learned along the way. There is no dream house. Houses and spaces are simply places to hold our dreams. And as we age, as our lives change, sometimes changing homes is the perfect thing. It allows our dreams to grow, without holding us captive to a space.

The house I am in now? I adore it. It’s certainly no “big white house on the hill”, but that’s OK. It’s warm. It’s friendly. It’s flexible. It fits my dreams. I could see myself living here forever.

But you never know……

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom