Now don’t go thinking that I’m getting all superficial and suburbanite on you, but we’ve lately been obsessed with roof color. It’s not our fault, believe me! We can’t afford to move in to a house and immediately start doing work on it! That’s not us. Look at our last house. We lived there for eight years and though we talked a lot about things we might change or fix, we never did a thing but paint a couple walls. Part of the reason we didn’t think we stood a chance on this particular house was that it obviously needed a new roof and was priced basically right at the top of our budget. We simply couldn’t afford it. Until at the last second when the seller threw in the price of a new roof!
The new roof is slated to be put on in mid-August right after or before we will be moving in but other than that, we are just sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting for the loan to go through. We can’t lay a finger on it until the closing in late July when it officially changes hands (all we can do is pathetically stalk it, driving by every other day or so oogling the neighborhood and drooling). The only thing we really can do is pick out a roof color.
That’s why we are so obsessed with something that probably would never otherwise be on our radar. We even took a trip yesterday driving around looking at other peoples’ roofs after Greg got home from work.
Again, I’m finding similarities with wedding stuff. I think I remember going through similar indecision about wedding color schemes. “What personality does our house have?” Greg asked me, “Once we figure out the personality, we can go from there.”
The fuck? “Personality”? Naw. People have personality. A house don’t have no motherfreakin’ personality. Now we’ve really gone over the yuppy duppy deep end (I feel like this is going to be a perpetual struggle for me especially because in buying this house, I feel a little like I’m leaving my working class roots behind and in turn, have to somehow resolve feelings of disdain I’ve held for people like Greg and I all my life). This was one of the down sides in moving into the place that we’ve chosen. Greg has more of that white collar upbringing behind him so doesn’t have the same struggles, but I was raised by a self-employed carpenter. I’m extremely proud of my dad and my roots and the neighborhood I was raised in so it’s a little out of my comfort zone to sort of leave that behind and live what some might call a step up from my parents. Makes me feel a little bit like a big phony (probably especially because it’s not even me earning a decent living, or any living at all, it’s Greg. I’m just along for the ride).
Not only that, but I’m having to deal with the reality that my dad was incredibly skilled at what he did whereas people like Greg (not to put down my husband, he is also an incredibly dedicated and passionate worker) just say and do the right things, have the right connections and that’s the difference between being able to send your kids to top schools, living in a safe area and comfortably affording your lifestyle and living paycheck to paycheck and always struggling to pay bills.
Life is not fair. Or as my mom is always fond of saying, “Life sucks and then you die.” Eloquent, I know. Grama always did have a way with words:)
In the meantime, will somebody please explain the difference in contrast between “faded cedar” and “Brownwood”? Man, this yuppy thing is hard to get the hang of:)
notes from the hood (parenthood) 