Escrow

I am a terrible home owner.  Words like Fescue or French Drain mean nothing to me, even though I am pretty sure I own both of these things.  It is not that I am uninterested in owning a home, I love my house and my neighborhood.  It is just that I am a little lost in all the things that come with a house of your own.

Home ownership is different than any other consumer action.  I am very comfortable indeed with owning things like cars and computers.  I understand there are responsibilities that come with having these things.  I have a virus scanner on my computer and I keep the cam belt changed in my car.  Without taking these simple steps my computer and car would become useless in short order.  But the house is only partly mechanical.  I keep the air conditioner coils clean, because it improves the performance of the unit.  I maintain my lawn mower, not only because I can grasp the basic necessity of maintaining a machine, but because the machine allows me to maintain my yard.  But beyond the mechanical things in the house I am a little lost.

The small patch of green earth I am responsible for is slightly overwhelming to me.  It is a living thing, and it supports a microcosm of life in its own right.  There are worms, slugs, squirrels, moles, numerous birds, and tiny snakes in my yard.  Why am I now responsible for the well being of hundreds of tiny creatures?  Lightening bugs that appear from thin air every evening.  Spiders who can weave massive webs between my car and a tree.  I know exactly what these spiders look like, because I tend to stumble through the webs every morning on my way to the coffee shop, unwittingly shuttling the poor arachnid downtown in my hair.  Until I realize there is a spider on my head, at which time I dance around flailing my arms screaming like a little girl in an attempt to rid myself of the unwelcome passenger.

It is not only the abundant life in my yard that freaks me out.  I worry about my responsibility to the city to maintain my trees, natural gas lines, sewer connection, water, power, and cable connections.  There are also several people who rely on my home for a job.  I have a gutter guy.  I have an exterminator.  I have a HVAC guy.  I have a tree guy.  I have homeowner's insurance and a mortgage.  There is a small part of the city’s economy that relies on my house.  I even have local, state, and federal politicians who count on me to vote for them at my designated polling place.  It is not that owning a house creates unique challenges, it is just that I am unfamiliar with this experience.

I am a car guy.  Even though a car is exceedingly complex, it is self contained, if you don’t count the gas.  It is, by its very nature, mobile.  It is small.  It is (relatively) inexpensive.  It is, in other words, exactly the opposite of my house.  I am comfortable with every aspect of my car, but I find it less easy to reach the same level of repose about my house.

Yet, despite all this, I am working into some level of comfort with my home.  We have been here over 10 years and I finally have furniture I like.  I am having somebody who understands green things do something with them on my property.  I am even planning on buying some mulch, whatever that is.  It has taken a long time, but having some permanence in my life is not quite so scary.  Home ownership has removed some of the care free nature my life previously held.  I now have something to lose if I decide to do something stupid, where before there were no consequences.  There has been a paradigm shift in my life without my consent or even knowledge, but I am learning to deal with it.

I might eventually find that I want this life. Until then, I will come to terms with this whole homeowner thing.  I enjoy my home, even though it freaks me out a little bit.  Some of us were born to own real estate, I was born to own a condo.  Or better yet, an old city garage.  Somewhere I could live with my cars.  An open space with exposed brick, wood beams, and a loft for my meager belongings.  All in the interstices of a city where I could remain anonymous while building very neat machines.  I am sure somebody once said it is good to have goals.  Maybe I have found one.