100 Words Per Mile: No Place Like Home

What are cures anyway?

September 16, 2021
6.00 miles
50:34

This is the most I’ve run since my surgery. I can feel myself beginning to rev up, not just physically, but also mentally. I think about my baby a lot. My front yard landscaping is complete, but I still have this pedaling need to nest. My backyard is next, I guess.

My wife and I’ve owned our home for four and a half years. We got lucky and stumbled upon this little turn-key foreclosure only a mile from where we were currently living. We bought it for $189,000 and when we refinanced earlier this year, our house was appraised at $235,000. We’ve updated bits and pieces. We ripped up the carpet, installed water-proof vinyl (did the labor ourselves, too!), and added backsplash to the kitchen. We’ve also painted the walls and the cabinets and changed a mirror in one of the bathrooms. We’re turning into a regular white-HGTV stereotype.

With each improvement or update, though, we fall in love with the house a little bit more. It feels as if we’re building it ourselves. Years down the road, when my daughter takes her first steps, it’ll mean something to me that my wife and I put the floors in ourselves. The truth is, too, that we wouldn’t have made any of these changes had we not miscarried months into becoming homeowners. We might’ve painted here and there, but the house we have now wouldn’t exist if not for that period of suffering. Now, our daughter will get to reap the benefits of that suffering.

Homeownership is almost non-existent in my peer group. From student loans to stagnant wages to a lack of generational wealth, there are plenty of reasons for this. My wife and I became engaged at twenty-three and married at twenty-five. Our friends were not doing the same. Now that we’re in our thirties, our friends are still not doing the same. Why buy a home if you’re single? Especially when it’s nearly impossible to afford something alone.