The last 40 days have been a completely wild ride. If you’d like to know what I’ve been up to the last month then grab a cup of tea, get comfy, and keep reading. I bought a house!
It all started in January. You see, I released this thing called the Self Love Planner. Writing it was an amazing experience. Some of it is written straight from my heart but the rest of it comes from Spirit – that source that flows through me and makes words come out. Sometimes you write the things you need to hear. Each month in the SLP has a different theme and the theme for January was dreams. I made the suggestion of picking a dream and taking the first step of working towards it and then see where it goes, enjoy the ride.
I love taking my own advice.
So I sat down and I looked at life and I asked myself what I really wanted. Obvious answer – a place of my own. A home that was all mine. Something that wasn’t a cheap apartment. So I took the first step, which was checking out the whole loan thing and seeing if I qualified, and I did. Which led me to the next step of looking at houses online, just to see, because there’s no harm in that right? Which naturally led to the next step of “Oh my goodness that house is adorbs, I want to go see it.”
And the first few houses I saw just weren’t right.
And part of me got really discouraged.
And I tried to talk myself out of this dream.
Because if it’s meant to be then it should come easily. With no snafus. It should fall into your lap with very little effort because that’s what ‘meant to be’ means. The Universe gift wraps your destiny and hands it to you with no strings attached. Ha. Ha. Ha. Yeah, right.
I realized how silly that is, in everything. ‘Meant to be’ really boils down to wanting it bad enough and oftentimes that’s a lot of freaking work – with relationships, big dreams, and everything else.
It wasn’t easy. Did I want my own home? So much yes. But it was hard. Especially for this highly sensitive – introverted – scaredy cat.
It was hard because I am a creature of habit and routine.
Those two things have been the saving grace in my battle against depression and anxiety and I chucked them out the door with this decision of uprooting myself and planting my lovely bum in brand new territory, literally and figuratively!
A little voice inside of me said ‘It’s okay, you got this.’ A little bit of honesty, when my chest felt tight with panic that voice wavered a bit but persevered anyway. There were lots of tears of overwhelm and lots of moments when I wailed ‘I can’t do this’ but at the core of all of that – what got me through it – was trust in myself.
That’s so important to making dreams come true.
Trust yourself to make the right decisions. Trust your gut when it comes to making choices. Trust. Trust. Trust. With self love comes such a deep beautiful trust. So when you are in the depths of complete craziness that love and trust gets you through. Like any good relationship, that foundation makes freakin’ magic happen.
Also, being a control freak is a bitch at times like these.
I like being in control, master of my Universe and all that. This was a lesson, that I’ve learned about twenty times now, in letting go of control. You do what you can do, what is in your control, and then you’ve got to pry your clamped and clenched fingers from the steering wheel and let things be as they will be. You can’t control everything. Make sure that you can swim and then just let go, lie back, and go with the flow.
So here I am sitting in my new house.
She’s new to me anyway, in reality this house is a sweet old lady but she’s mine. It’s been two sleeps in this strange house with its odd noises, groans, and creaks. My stuff is still mostly in boxes, there’s no art on the walls yet but I sit here in this wee house and I am happy. I have space both inside and out and it feels really good. I feel good. I feel this deep sense of relief tinged with joy and pride and holy-crap-you-actually-did-this. I am grateful.
I am so freakin’ grateful.
I am thankful for my soul that has found its strength and has
I want to add a little note about how I made this happen: I did it all by my lonesome single self. I didn’t have anyone at all help me financially. My main job is I work at Wal-mart as an ordinary sales associate. (It’s my secret identity…. shhh!) I also have this website. I’ve always been good at saving money (I’ll be honest, it’s a compulsive need due to childhood trauma) so that’s what I did. I saved hard. I deprived myself of other wants for this really big freaking want.
A year and a half ago I had zero credit. I researched how to build credit and I got a credit card that would give you a monthly updated credit score for free, and I went at it.
I realize that I am fortunate.
I don’t have kids, I don’t have student loans, I’ve never owned a car and I walk or use public transit (the fear of driving is anxiety based and not saving money based) so I get that it was probably a lot easier for me than it would be for someone else, but that being said it was still hard. And I freaking did it. I bought a house!
I bought my first house last September and when the closing date was set, I freaked out. Badly. Frantically called my agent and the lender and tried to get out of it, sobbing and panicking, thinking "I can't do this, who do I think I am" etc. Doing it on your own is tough, but it was a good decision in the end. I love my house, my yard, my trees, my floors, windows, roof! It's mine all mine, no landlord to pester me or intimidate me, and I get to choose who comes and goes. It's wonderful. I'm so happy for you and so glad you get to experience that space! Love to you, <3 Emily
Oh yes, I hear ya sister! But YAY to both of us, we're awesome! :D
Thanks for the love! <3