The yard could only be described as pastoral.
Children of all ages ran around the verdant grassy stretch behind the white house, its full back porch decorated with bronze butterflies and a string of lights. Cozy rattan couches invited guests to sit and relax, and the two — two! — wooden play structures snuggled into a grove of trees elicited screams of delight.
The kiddie pool was filled, and the big girl wanted to swim. I gestured for her to join me inside the big, old house so we could change into her bathing suit.
Together we made our way through the cheerful kitchen, granite counters covered with potluck offerings. The wooden floors were worn but clean, and a sleek, well-appointed blonde in a summer skirt pointed me to the powder room in the front hall.
The bathroom occupied by another young swimmer, so the girl and I sat down on a built-in bench to wait our turn.
She kicked her feet, I rubbed my eyes. It was nearing the end of a long visit back East and I was running out of patience and clean clothes. Outside, my husband tended to the boy, who, fueled by lax rules and sugar, ran wild with the others.
I looked around at the grand staircase and the elaborate, antique light fixture over the dining room table. The high ceilings of a bygone age gave the home an air of grace, the kind of relaxed luxury it is so easy to envy.
“This house is fancy,” my daughter said, tilting her head at the walls with their high wainscoting. “Everyone here has a fancy house. Our house is not fancy. Why can’t we have a fancy house?”
She ended the small soliloquy by squinting up at me.
I scowled back at her, embarrassed by my own thoughts articulated in her girlish voice.
“We have a very nice house,” I snapped. “Don’t you like our house?”
She hung her head; I shamed her.
She tried again.
“But Mama, our house is so plain,” she said. “We could make it fancier.”
The thing is, we can’t. We have what we have, and we live a nice life. Our center-stair, four-bedroom Colonial is palatial compared to so many. It is clean and comfortable and it holds us and our possessions just as well as that 100-year-old mansion with a sprawling back porch on a tree-lined street would, without the attendant headaches of an older home.
Sometimes, though, when we’re there, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by it. The simple fact is that we lead the life of two artists. We are fortunate, indeed, to have what we have. We have more than enough, but what we do have is not fancy.
When my daughter looked at me and spoke the words in my own heart, it hurt, more than I imagined it could.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I still get this sometimes, from my big kids, ages 16 to 22. They go on and on about some kid’s bedroom or amazing house or vacation or car. And I smile and nod but it can hurt. Like they’re questioning the choices I made to get us where we are, and some things we’ve done without so we could do others. So I could be with them more. Sigh….it’s hard but I keep reminding myself they’re so young; they can’t know what it would have cost them to have more materially, and less emotionally and physically.
Maureen@IslandRoar´s last blog ..Making My Mark
Yeah, my son is starting to realize some of his friends have big, big houses and ours isn’t as big as those friends. He will state that the people in big houses are rich but those in small houses are poor. I’ve had to explain to him that this isn’t always the case. But, heck, I envy these homes (even though I’d never want to clean/heat/furnish them), so I am not surprised my kids do too.
I still remember being a child and trying to be happy with what I had though painfully aware that we had much less than my friends. It’s a hard lesson to learn but there is always someone who will have “more”.
Fairly Odd Mother´s last blog ..Want to be lazy at PR? Fill in the blanks
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Sigh. I get this. I get it so much. Truly.
We spent three days this weekend in a borrowed vacation home of my great aunt’s. A million dollar vacation home in the mountains. Surrounded by gorgeous views. In a town I could never afford. In a home I could never afford. With things I can’t afford.
It was nice to get to visit it though, even if I had to come back to my just small decent house.
Issa´s last blog ..Re-definining camping
Envy is so easy and so hard….
Most of the time I am happy with what I have and the life we have, we are very comfortable, we get to go to California once a year, and then…suddenly, I am not.
inthefastlane´s last blog ..Sometimes
How do we not know each other in real life?! Well, the distance, of course…
As ever, well spoken my friend.
Hip Mom’s Guide´s last blog ..Breathe
More good stuff!