Identity and Home
Suburban Dallas, TX, courtesy of wikipedia.org
Since we’ve decided to buy a house in the suburbs…
Wait. Did I mention that we actually decided this? If not, well, we did. We’ve been back and forth over the issue a lot, and since the economy seems to be picking up in our area, and since we do have the money to do it as long as it’s a relatively inexpensive house, we’ve decided just to take the plunge because it seems like the financially right thing to do at this point in our lives.
So, since we’ve made this decision, I’ve been thinking a lot about identity and how it interacts with the home you choose for yourself and your family. From where I see it, our lives could take two paths right now. 1) We could continue the apartment/condo living and move toward a more urban environment, which would be fun and good for our souls, but would mean spending more on rent because prices go up as you move toward the city, and would mean hellish commutes for both of us. 2) We could buy a house in the suburbs and stay there forever, which would be great to not have to think about moving again for a while, would be closer to our jobs and families, and would provide us more space, but would also feel a little… well… normal for my tastes.
Obviously, both scenarios have their pros and cons, and we’ve thought a lot about each of them together and come to the conclusion that, if we buy the house in the ‘burbs, the pros outweigh the cons. We’d be closer to our jobs and our families, own our own property (which means not having to deal with crappy landlords), have a lot more space, not have to walk the dog three times a day because we’d have a yard, I’d have my own office, we’d build equity in the house… the list goes on and on.
When I think about these positives, I can clearly and logically see that it is the right choice, and I am excited to start looking at houses seriously this weekend. (We’ve looked before, but not really with the intent to buy.) I’ve been following tons of interior design blogs, too, and have so many awesome ideas for what I want the inside of our home to look like. Still, though, there’s this nagging concern that I just can’t seem to shake. To me, your home is your identity. If you live in the city, you’re a cool cat, willing to explore and have fun. If you live in the suburbs, you’re on the fast track to family life.
I know that’s not true for everyone, but, to me, it seems wasteful to buy a house with all this space if we’re not going to use it for anything – namely children. Now, we haven’t decided about kids yet, but we know we’re not getting there in the next few years. My fear is that, with all of these empty rooms, I’ll start to feel pressured to get there a little faster. I also feel like, in a house that isn’t as “offbeat” as I’d like, I’ll just start feeling like a different person. No amount of funky furniture or paint colors can make a house different, I think.
What I need to do, really, is come to terms with the fact that buying a house doesn’t have to make us fundamentally different than we are already. It shouldn’t stop my writing or my activism. We can still go into the city as much as we want, or, at least, as much as we do now. It won’t stop us from having a wonderful marriage. In short, buying a house in the ‘burbs won’t turn me into June Cleaver. But I think I might have to fight it a little bit.
What I’m really interested in is hearing your opinions on this. I know you all have faced decisions about where to live and why. How do you feel about home and identity? Are they as intertwined as I think they are?
When my partner and I finally had the means to buy, at first we looked at condominium units. The city here is very cool, a good place to live — lovely in the day, lively and pretty safe at night. After living in a rented house in that city but not near downtown, we thought maybe we wanted to be “air people” — people who live in a tower far above the rest of the world. There’s a lot of that here.
What really led us away from the was the space — as in, almost none. These units are really small for a lot of money, and we had too much stuff that we didn’t want to get rid of. So, having a bit more money, we started to look at houses in the city, a bit outside of downtown but in cool neighbourhoods. But again, what you could get for the money just wasn’t good enough, and we did not want to have basement tenants just to be able to afford the mortgage.
So we ended up in the burbs. A detached house all our own, a small lot–this suburb is really a small city–for a garden, trees, and both a park and lots of services within walking distance. It wasn’t cool like downtown, but it was a pretty good compromise. We’re well connected by transit with that tempting downtown area. We love our house. It’s old, heritage-y even, and has enough funkiness for us.
You’re in a very different city. A suburb for you is different. You’re probably talking about driving for getting around rather than public transit (we drive some, but not a lot). I would say the biggest plus for you in choosing a suburban home is less commute. For most people, that would be living downtown, but if you commute less by living in the burbs, great! And being near family has to be a plus as well.
You can always turn those extra rooms into cool spaces unless and until you need them for something else. 🙂
Oh, and we’ve managed to balance nesting with getting out and being in close touch with friends and going to events. You won’t turn into June Cleaver unless you want to. 🙂
Okay, I might have said living in the city is good for the soul, but so is being near family and not spending a good chunk of your day commuting.
I think the “good for the soul” part of living in a city can still be achieved in the burbs, because what a city provides is an automatic community, You are on top of other people and so you learn to live with them. There are lots of people doing many different fun and interesting things in a small space so it is easy to find the people who do the things you enjoy.
You can also find this in the suburbs. We technically live in the suburbs – though it is in the middle of cities and our parents think of it as urban – but we live within walking distance of our main street so we rarely drive (one thing you don’t do in cities). We know our local business owners and run into friends on the sidewalk (a great thing about urban neighborhoods). We can still go out to dinner and drinks and support the arts. And the best part is none of those things are super packed with people vying for attention. In the city the same thing happens on a larger scale. And maybe what the burbs have going for them is that if there isn’t the community you want you can create it – which obviously you are already a pro at doing.
Hi! I wandered over from Offbeat Bride after your post on changing your name. Just wanted to sat that I enjoyed it.
And, regarding the house: who says that you have to buy some place with a lot of empty rooms? I’ve been very inspired by Little House on a Small Planet – no need to buy big houses. I recommend that book, it really makes you think about what you want in a house.
You can do it! We faced the same issue when leaving apartment life for unshared walls. Yes, we live in a “cookie cutter” starter home mostly because the old charmers needed new siding, roofs and windows, quite out of our price range. However, we’ve managed to stay unique, becoming quite frugal and green. This summer we’re tilling half of our backyard into a vegetable garden. Surprisingly we’re not the only ones. Even though it’s tough at times we’ve managed to get by carpooling and only owning one car. We’ve occasionally had to rent a second but it is far cheaper than owning. As for filling up the rooms with new furniture, our house is 90% filled with previously loved by relatives pieces. Why buy new when we’d rather travel the world with that money. Our extra “empty” rooms are filled up by the office and a guest room. Throw in a full/queen bed, dresser and the pet bed and the room never looks empty. We call it the cat’s bedroom! Best of luck!