I'll Know When I See It

Oh look at that one! It's great. Well, except for the smell, and that whole thing going on with the one wall there and there's a window that's leaking. But it's great, right?!

Note the edge of desperation. Possibly it's because I've been thinking about dating a lot lately. That sounds wrong. I'm not thinking of me currently dating anyone except my husband. Although, it has been said of us that we do still act like we're dating. I'll take that as a compliment. I'm working on a project. It's a project about projects, in a way, so my dating life has been shuffled around to the forefront of the rummage sale in my head.

Possibly it's because I've been thinking about dating a lot lately, but I'm feeling a little desperate. That also sounds wrong. I'm desperate, but I wasn't particularly desperate while I was dating. Most of the time. But right now, this thing I've been feeling lately, reminds me of the time that maybe once or twice I did feel like that.

We're looking for a house. It feels like everyone around us is happily pairing up with their perfect houses and living their perfect lives and we're the ugly kids on the edge of the dance. We finally work up our confidence to go over and make an offer on one, with our sweaty palms and our shaky knees and our tiny earnest money and just as we're about to get there, someone dashing and confident and gorgeous steps in front of us and takes it. Oh well, we say. They probably would have said no anyway.

I look at houses and I think "Oh, this one is handsome, but not my type. The roof also appears to be a little leaky."

I look at other houses and I think "I'm in the wrong place. They will never accept me."

I look at still other houses and I think "If I could change this, this, and this... then maybe I could live with it."

And the most humiliating of all, well-meaning people say "Oh, what about this one? I think it would be perfect!" and I look and I cry. Because it's under a bridge, or the bathroom is caving in, or it reeks of cat food and old lady and I think someone died there and was eaten by cats. Or because it seems perfectly fine on the surface and then you look deeper and the 147 Marilyn Monroe posters in the basement are covering some serious mold. And then I cry. I cry because I don't feel like I deserve a nice house, that my expectations are too high, that I should accept my lot in life and be grateful for the mold and the Marilyn Monroe posters and the corpse and the cat pee smell.

People who have done this before smile smugly and nod while they glance around their own cat-pee free houses and say "Don't worry, honey. It will be your turn. When you find the right one, you'll just know." And I hate them for that because I know that they are right, but I am tired and I am hungry and my clothes smell like the living of dozens of other people because I've traipsed through their lives and looked in their cupboards and in the dark places where no one goes - the furnace room, the basement, the garage, some showers. I've looked at the hopeful pipes and utility closets and "cozy eat-in kitchens" of strangers who have gussied and styled and preened, all with their own scent of desperation and I have found them wanting. I hate them and I'm tired. I hear myself saying the dreaded words "Maybe we'll just go live in the suburbs. Maybe we should just settle."

I'm not asking for much. I'm just asking for perfect. But you don't understand. "Perfect" for me is flawed and quirky and wonderful and strange. I don't need the flashiest, the showiest, the latest craze, the most stylish. I just need right for me. I have standards you couldn't possibly understand. I just know I'll know when I see it.