Unfinished
I love the finished parts of my house. The projects we’ve worked on and the furniture and nice things we’ve been able to buy. But I also love the unfinished parts. I love my basement that has cement floor, old wood paneling, old laundry machines and a toilet in the middle of the room. I love my kitchen that has peel and stick tile on it, poorly painted cabinets from one manic weekend, and part of the floor missing from when our dishwasher leaked (which is ironically one of the few new things in the house).
One day, those old parts will probably be replaced. We will eventually get that new kitchen and finish the basement. We'll cover the hole in the dining room floor and cut off that weird part of the trim that sticks out. We'll get a back door that doesn't stick and windows that don't immediately let all the heat out. We'll eventually do all those things and I look forward to those days. But remodeling my office during the pandemic has taught me a valuable lesson.
As I'm typing this, I can look around the room and I don't see a finished room. I see the obnoxiously bright yellow paint in the nook that my husband picked out. I remember how I thought it would look terrible but said yes anyway because it's just paint. Now it makes me smile. I remember the first attempt he made at building the shelves, when he stood them up to show me and the whole thing immediately shifted. We burst out laughing. I remember all the little moments we had together, the Saturday trips to Home Depot, and then back again a few hours later when we realized we forgot something.
With so much of our lives unfinished it can feel like we're always waiting for the next thing or the next "project" to be done. It's hard now, but when I move out of my parent's house, then everything will be better… or maybe it'll be better when I get married… when I publish my book… when I have kids… when I get that dream job…. when we get a house… when I get a new job cause I actually hate that dream job…. when we get a bigger house… etc. etc.
It's nice to have a wish list, but if I ever think I'm getting to the end of it I'm fooling myself. I'll never get there and I don't need to get there because as cheesy as this sounds it's about the journey. It's about what you do with what you have. Are we going to fight about paint colors, or do we appreciate that we have someone to pick out colors with?
Life is unfinished until the day we die. The best piece of advice I think I could ever give is to learn to love the unfinished. Love every bit of your broken life. Make it better when you can. Grow as you're able. But don't let some false finish line steal away the joy of the journey.
