The Midlife Divide

I’ve been shopping for a house to buy and last Friday I found two. They were so different from each other that I discovered myself, once again, at the midlife divide. It gave me the same sensation as booking a trip to Europe for the first time since I was 24 and facing the following questions:

Take the backpack or the rolling luggage?
Book the youth hostel or the 3-star hotel?
Study the Lonely Planet guide or the Rick Steves?
Solo travel or guided tour?

I used to be an edgy, urban 20-something living in San Francisco, stomping bravely past the housing project after dark to get to my cool, hip, Victorian flat with the high ceilings and the hardwood floors that just oozed history and charm.

A part of me wanted that back, and my house hunt in Columbia, South Carolina oddly took me there - or pretty close. I found the cutest brick bungalow near downtown, a funky urban older home with all the groovy details: the bay windows and hardwood floors, the tiled porch and antique vanity in the bath. It had great landscaping, a wood-burning stove, and a lanai in the backyard for outdoor entertaining.

It was so cute, SO perfectly charming, that I ignored a few things on the first pass. Things like my realtor saying about the neighborhood, “One block is like Park Avenue. The next block you wouldn’t go to without a weapon, know what I’m sayin'?”

The bungalow was indeed on a Park Avenue block, but there were signs of neglect and disrepair and poverty just up the street. At 5:00 in the afternoon, a paddy wagon with flashing lights was settling some sort of civil unrest; the neighborhood park looked like a great place to buy crack. “I could be very happy in that bungalow,” I kept telling myself.

But could I, really? It was hard for me to accept this, but that phase of my life might be over. The wild oat sowing might be done. I might just have become an older, ordinary, middle class woman who just doesn’t feel like dangling off the cliff without a harness anymore. My big question for myself has been, Does this constitute selling out?

The jury's still out on that overarching dilemma, but one thing is certain: I have a contract on a home and it's nowhere near midtown. It's five minutes from my school in a neighborhood with no edge anywhere near it. It's in a development with one of those awful poser names. You know the type. "The ____ at _____." My development is so awful it's got two "ats" in it: "The ____ at _____ AT ______." OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE???

But.......... it's got all the cultural diversity without the fear and dread. And it's got things I've never had in a home in my whole adult life. Things like two extra rooms (one for meditation and one for guests)! Things like two-and-a-half baths! Things like matching appliances - including a dishwasher!

[Can you believe I've lived in 27 different homes in the past 24 years and not one of them had a DISHWASHER?]

I know. It's crazy that these things excite me more than hardwood floors and bay windows anymore. But there you have it. I'm gonna be livin' in the 'burbs with the creature comforts. For charm, I guess I’ll just have to decorate.