Senior Moments: Why owning a house is like being married

The holes in my walls began speaking to me several weeks ago.

“Be careful what you ask for,” the one in the entry hall said as plaster puddled around the circular opening the electrician had carved.

The hole had a point. I had been asking for this electrical upgrade ever since the damage caused by the Eaton fire.

“How long did you say you’ve been waiting for this?” the much larger hole near the ceiling fan in my bedroom asked.

The answer would be almost a year and a half in calendar time. I lost count of the sleepless nights, emails sent, phone calls to the insurance company, contracts signed electronically, the time it took to learn how to sign an electronic signature, waiting for approvals and reminding myself how fortunate I was to have a home that survived the fire. Let’s just say I have been waiting a long time.

“Don’t trip over that wire, you don’t need another broken hip,” the hole that lives just inside my office doorway would remind me every time I stepped into the room.

Hole #5 — don’t ask me why I called it that — was the first to start complaining about the heat when the openings were covered with tape. They will stay that way until they are inspected and approved to be plastered and painted.

I felt bad for the sweating holes, but not badly enough to rip off the tape and risk visitors. The story told by my friend who had a rat crawl through a hole during her bathroom remodel haunts me as I walk through my hole-filled house.

“Look, guys,” I told them, “I know this is tough.”

The truth is, committing to a house is like a marriage. You’re in it for better or for worse. A deep attachment develops. You take care of each other. When something is broken, you fix it. Sometimes the fix is uncomfortable and mending takes longer than you think you can manage. But you do it anyway.

And you do it with a smile because this is what you signed up for. Here’s hoping we’ll be taking care of each other for many more years.

Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com.