We’re buying a lakehouse.
Well, kind of.
We’re buying a small piece of property (less than an acre) on the corner of a lake.
On the property is a small structure we’re calling a “lakehouse”, even though “fishing shack” is probably a more accurate description. And this little lakehouse hasn’t been lived in for 15 years and looks like it needs a strong wind to blow through and knock it down.
But in 15 years, no strong wind has knocked it down, and I hope it doesn’t. Because we want to rebuild it and put all our hopes and dreams inside its tiny walls.
Like a lot of our decisions, this one probably seems like it’s coming out of nowhere.
Some people (read: my mom) think we’re being emotional and making a spur-of-the-moment decision. I can see why, I guess. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve made an emotional decision, and it certainly won’t be the last.
But this doesn’t feel that way to me because I know it’s something we’ve both wanted for a long time, that we’ve talked about, and dreamed about. We’ve dreamed of a house in the country, a slice of heaven where we can let our hair down, get our hands dirty, and spread our wings.
And now the dream might actually be finding its way into reality.
The reality is a little less charming — as reality often is. But God, I want this to work out so badly it makes my bones ache. And maybe it isn’t the dream, yet. But it could be. And sometimes dreams are like that, right? It’s the start of a dream. The dream of a dream.
But even dreams aren’t free.
We’ve run the numbers. And run the numbers again. And again. We’ve stayed up at night worrying about it, and woken up early talking about it. We’ve combed through every inch of our spending. We’ve knocked against the parts of our budget that are too solid to move, squeezed the parts that are squishy, and hacked away at the fluffy bits.
And we’ve determined that maybe — just maybe — this isn’t a crazy decision. If we curb our spending in the areas where we tend to be reckless, if we can be more responsible and less impulsive, we can make this work and still continue to do adulty things like save for retirement.
Just to be clear, we’ll still live and work in the city during the week. So is it worth it for a weekend place? I think so. I hope so. I hope it will make living and working in the city more bearable. I love my job, and I love the convenience of living close to things, and close to family and friends. But when I think about what I want for my life and how I want to raise my kids, I think about the parts of my own childhood that were magical.
I grew up in the country and we had so much freedom back then. We went outside and played. We used our imagination. We spent hours climbing trees and catching frogs by the lake shore. We got dirty and sometimes we made messes, but sometimes we built cool things, too. We came inside when we got hungry or when it got too dark to see, and it seemed like no one ever asked where we were or what we were doing.
I know my kids are growing up in a different world than I did. I know that, I do. But I feel like this little house by the lake is an opportunity — a ray of hope — that maybe my kids can have a small piece of what I once had when I was a wild child running barefoot through the yard.
Maybe we’ll have to rein in our habits of eating out too often and hitting the “buy now” button without checking the budget first. But I really, really strongly believe that it’s going to be worth it.
avantgardener 