You can’t always get what you want…

Adam and I have lived in our town house for almost five years which is two years more than we ever intended. I never would have guessed that real estate would become a bad investment. So as our family has grown, dog and baby, we are starting to outgrow our house. We met with a realtor whose outlook of the situation was pretty bleak. When I started thinking about years more of living in our overgrown space, I became very depressed. In my vision of our life; our family would be playing in the backyard, decorating the front porch with Halloween goodies, and buying big obnoxious toys for our basement. Now I’m stuck and cannot proceed forward as I want to. In the midst of my frustration I started looking around at my home. I say home because that’s what it has become. Not just walls and appliances but a home full of great things! I have so much and am so blessed, yet never satisfied. And then the guilt set in. How can I be so unappreciative when so many people have so much less? What would it take to satisfy me? I thought about this question for awhile and came to the answer – nothing! Of course the grass is always greener on the other side, you can’t always get what you want but you might find you get what you need, yadda yadda…the clichés go on forever. If I were content with where I was, would I have the drive to keep working towards more? Has that same dissatisfaction with my life fueled my success? If I give up and accept that my life is good just the way it is, will I have nothing to work for? Is it possible to be content with your station of life, yet still have a burning desire to move forward? As we accept that our home is worth so much to us but far less to market value and strive to save up for larger dreams, I sit back and reflect on what we have accomplished by even just getting to this point. As homeowners who have enjoyed this first step to the American Dream. Maybe the American Dream has been redefined from the one our ancestors worked towards. Maybe our dream is a four bedroom single family in the ‘burbs. In which case…a girl can dream, right?