A house is not a home

Ever since Peter and I initiated the mega plan of house renovation, I have this constant feeling of being ugly, which further evolved to a certain level of self resentment.

When i said ugly, it was never refer to external appearance because its a matter of relativity and subjectivity. There is a no way a person can be ugly when beauty is in the eye of beholder. No matter how unsightly a person is, he/she is still the perfect person in someone's eyes. So when i said ugly, i am referring to this ugly little monster in me, who is emotional, temperamental, effusive.

When we first get our place, the feeling is like the man in the parable who found the hidden treasure in a field, in his joy went to sold all he had and bought the field. Such a joy came from the longing for a home after I've been away from home for a long long time and moved 7 times in 10 years. Having a home is like the light in the end of this tunnel of never ending nomad life. I have always pictured "home" as the idea of planting myself (with my love one) somewhere, with hard work and aspiration and seeing how life could be build upon solid cemented ground. Although its just 1068 square feet, however, the empowerment from the feeling of 'ownership' is still pretty much overwhelming.

I would very much wanted to sugarcoat the entire process by continue to make statements like owning a house is about building our life dah dah dah.... However in reality, when i am finally in the process of seeing the wall hacking and bricks by bricks it went up again, it strikes me that this may not be as beautiful as painting the castle in the air.

The amount of the details which we need to went through, the endless decision with regards to the choice of contractor, design, purchase which we need to made is wearing us off. It took me off guard that how impatience and how indecisive i am when it comes to housing matters. Maybe its because i am inexperience, maybe it involves a hell lot of moolah, or maybe its a simple fact that i am incompetent when it comes to dealing with adult matters (well, the entire adulthood is nothing but paying bills, loans, getting house, paying more loans isnt?). Who would imagine that Peter and I can argue on petty things like should we have 2 or 3 downlights at the corridor, and reconciled by sending make-peace sms afterthat.

At some point it hit me hard that owning a home was much less about building a life but more about purchasing a living structure on a piece of illiquid asset. or in simple terms, it was just a "house", and we should never see the asset bigger than life as though our entire couplehood or happily ever after is depend wholly on that.

"Home" was never about the house, but more about us. I was listening to the song "House is not a home" from Glee the other day, and the lyrics nearly teared me up. It says:

A chair is still a chair
Even when there's no one sitting there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home
When there's no one there to hold you tight,
And no one there you can kiss good night.

A room is still a room
Even when there's nothing there but gloom;
But a room is not a house,
And a house is not a home
When the two of us are far apart
And one of us has a broken heart.

Yeah, its still long way to go before the house is ready for human inhabitation, but am glad the the process taught me a great lesson.