Super Fantastic Dream Home Renovation

The longest I've ever lived in a home is seven years.  Twice I've managed to stay that long.  Once from twelve to nineteen in Eden Prairie, MN.  And once in Pflugerville, Texas from when my son was twelve, until he was nineteen.

Seven years is the longest he's ever had the same home too.

Vagrants. Vagabonds.  Nomads.  Gypsies.

Call us what you will. 

But we have been made more because we have roamed. 

If nothing else, we understand more deeply now what a real home means.

That nutshell you can always retreat to.

And for the really successful - a place filled with love and laughter and family too.

Super Fantastic Dream Home Renovation - and all those other home improvement shows really miss the mark - by a mile. 

Sure, they can install matching tile, backsplash and range hood. 

But filling a home requires none of these.

Sure, those things make you feel good, for a moment - as we fill up space with all the pretty things we feel we 'deserve'.

And my-oh-my haven't these same things - at the same time - cut us off from community, from family, from living the life we really want to live?

How?  You ask.  Well, let me explain.

"Mortgaged to the teeth" is a common saying here in the US, because many people have homes they cannot furnish or repair, homes they spend their entire lives renting from the Powers That Be.  (Mortgages and property taxes make true home ownership a thing of the past.)

The best any of us can hope for is to rent our home at the lowest possible rate.

(Fall behind in your property taxes and they will seize your property - and give the full value of it to any entity able to purchase that tax debt.)

Then, one day a reverse mortgage will strip that home, and all of its contents (a legacy you worked 50 hours a week for 40 years for), so that you and your spouse can pay the combined $20k per-month rent at an assisted living facility. 

And because you've had to spend all of your productive time - your 40 most valuable years - working to pay for that home - instead of building connections, family, and community, you must now rely on paid workers to care for you in your tender years.

(More people than ever before require assisted living as our health has been eroded by chemicals, heavy metals, and poor nutrition.  More and more every year.)

These banks, these lobbyists, these politicians know exactly what they are doing.

The money slides into cracks created by laws and ordinances (all in the guise of protecting us) and before long... we own a shell.  Not a home.  The carpet is worn, the drapes are broken, the plumbing is sketchy - at best. 

Suddenly homeowner's insurance, and mortgage insurance, and property taxes, and a zillion other imposed obligations have turned our homes into a trap.

And our children, instead of inheriting the fruits of all of our sacrifices and hard labor, they instead inherit debt, confusion, and a willingness to roll over and submit.

Unless We Right Now Choose a Different Way. 

A sustainable way.  A way that honors lives spent in all pursuits. 




Exe
07/24/2023


*Soon the definition of home will change - and then everything will change.

© Raena Exe 2023
 
 

*All rights reserved.

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