The Search – or How to Not Buy What You Don’t Actually Want

Apart from the constant driving around and dealing with a variety of sales people of varying grades of sincerity, the hardest part of the search for a home for me was to not get swept away by other people’s opinions, needs, wants, expectations, or wishes.

When I started looking, I had the feeling in my heart that I wanted the space to evoke in me and some broad outlines of what I was looking for in terms of physical requirements. It was glorious. Wide eyed and open minded I went to look at dwelling after dwelling. “The One”, however, stayed illusive and throughout the following 6 months, I slowly felt more and more anxious about the whole idea. I caught myself, not too long ago, having an epic tantrum in my head about how all the world is unfair, everything is bad and this whole endeavor is without any joy. Pity Party, anyone?

I caught it, though, and marveling at the viciousness of my voice in my own head, I realised that I must have lost my way somewhere, that I didn’t always feel like that. So I began to retrace my steps.

I had set out with a small budget, was granted a windfall leading to a slightly bigger budget and distinctly remember thinking that this would be so much more than enough money to find myself a space to feel at home in.

I fell in love with a suit of buildings and decided that these are the ones I would love living in. All I had to do is look at all the spaces listed in there and wait for mine to come up.

I didn’t though. I didn’t trust that feeling, didn’t trust myself, couldn’t let go of controlling the process. So I still looked elsewhere and visited space after space, met agent after agent. Of course, I also talked with those people about the spaces I was visiting, as well as asking about the buildings I had fallen in love with. In addition, my closest friends and family were roped into disecting every visit and experience of the hunt.

In hindsight – that’s where I lost my way.

I began to use the word “hunt”, and believed it, too. Implying that by actively participating, searching, applying myself, analyzing, and strategizing, as well as competing with other hunters for the best game, I could win. I could, not find, but bag my new home.

As a result, what had started as a wandering, meandering, marvel filled, and beautiful journey turned into something anxiety inducing and fear laden. My thoughts were more and more often “I’m over this”, “I’ll never be able to aford anything nice”, “This is all so unfair”.

The more I grew afraid, the more I started to add other people’s opinions into my own reasoning.

Someone you respect loves a humongous kitchen? Yeah, actually, I do love my cooking too, so I should pay more attention to the physical minimum requirements of the kitchens.

Someone else cannot stand the idea of small bathrooms without natural light? Now that I think of it, yeah, that is pretty important and I should put that on the list of must have’s.

“All” the agents you spoke to have a really low opinion of the area that you are looking at? Probably they do have a point, they have been here for much longer than you are, after all. Yeah, I should look into the better part of town as a preferred option.

Play that game with enough people enough times and you have forgotten the feeling you were after. Your list of desires will have been extended by a mile and as a result, the previously so generous budget looks small, too small. You yourself will feel inadequate, insignificant, jealous, betrayed by life itself, and just plain unhappy.

Of course that does not happen all at once and out in the open, like, I did not even realise that it was happening at all. All I felt was mounting frustration and fear which I tried to combat with more vigorous application of myself to the hunt … vicious circle.

Back to the day of the tantrum. Having caught up with my own journey in my head, the exclamation “All these spaces are dining tables! And they are not even my dining tables” stood center stage in my thoughts and made me smile and relax for the first time in long weeks.

“Dining Table” is a Bingo word to remind myself of a lesson learnt: buying things will not fulfill my true desires. It stems from 2 years ago, when I moved and was confronted with the opportunity to make a long kept dream of a huge dining table a reality. Looking a oodles of options, non of them feeling quite right, I questioned the dream and was able to see that my true desire was not really the dining table but the image it stood for: connecting with people, sharing food and intimacy. Strangely enough, buying a table for 8 will not magically conjure 7 people to be your friend. So I decided to buy a small table I liked and felt good about and by casting of the false desire I opened room in my heart to acknowledge the true one.

The living spaces I have looked at in recent months were mostly other people’s dining tables. Their wishes and expectations, or better, the physical manifestations of their desires, that I have projected onto myself because I stopped trusting in my own.

So I went back in time, remembering where I started and found that feeling again, found the outlines again. I pieced together all that I was able to identify as my own – et voila, a space to call home had actually crossed my path some weeks ago.

Thank you, universe, for keeping it for me.