The Fantastical Truths

We bought our house a year ago today. You ask yourself, “How do I know this important piece of information?” Could it be my scrapbook? My fabulous and articulate memory? Please. I know because our heater broke and I called our home warranty company. Our policy expired yesterday.

Oh yes, it was only 364 days ago when I entered into one of my Willy Wonka-esque fantasies about the way my life would someday be. My husband and I had argued for a solid year about whether we could buy a house in Laguna. I dreamt that it would come true. After seeing over twenty houses, I wasn’t exactly sure how, but I remained the eternal optimist. My husband, the skeptical pessimist, believed that we needed to rent until the market dipped. But when I saw our house, I knew right away this was the one. And I was right. In what I call a “miracle” and he a “right place at the right time,” we were able to close before it went on the market.

The people we bought it from hailed from the land down under and had fabulous taste. The house was decorated with cool art and modern furniture. They were a designer family like I had never seen. Even though they had two children, the house was sleekly tidy in a sort of “Hey, we’re hip parents whose kids play, but never make a mess” fashion. And speaking of fashion, the mom was always stylishly dressed in some size 0 designer frock.

I knew that after living in this house, I, too, would become a tidy parent who was contemporary, hip, and perhaps even thin. All my cravings for chocolate chip cookie dough and nachos would dissipate. Those are not contemporary foods. From now on, I would eat organic greens for lunch and sip espresso at my new concrete countertop. I would study the Abstract Expressionist Painter De Kooning and contemplate why he chose to paint women as landscapes. I was going to have a lot more time to myself because my children were going to play quietly in a postmodern fashion that didn’t involve toys, only ideas. No toys, no mess to clean up. Instead of arguing over real estate, my husband and I would discuss whether libertarianism is a viable political philosophy.

This would be our new Laguna life. And we would smile and laugh nostalgically about our old messy Spanish style house we left in Los Angeles. What a chaotic, muddled life we used to live.

Ha! If only change were that simple. As I sit here a year later, waiting for the heating repairman to arrive, I think about my Modern House Fantasy. My life looks pretty much the same as it did a year ago, but surprisingly parts of my fantasy did come true:

True. I do eat a lot of organic greens although I can still polish off a hefty plate of nachos. (It’s not really fair to measure my chocolate chip cookie dough intake since that reached record highs while I was breast-feeding my kids.)

True: I don’t think I am hipper or thinner than a year ago, but I did go down a bra size, so I think that counts. (I’ll take what I can get here!)

False. I do not study De Kooning and Abstract Expressionism. My reading ranges between the New York Times and US Weekly depending on the number of temper tantrums thrown that day.

False. My house has never been such a disaster zone of toys, princess costumes and glue sticks. I blinked in a weak moment and one of those wretched Bratz dolls appeared in my house. (I blame it all on Costco and the poor lighting.)

True. My husband and I no longer argue about whether to buy a house in Laguna, but we do continue to argue about whether prices will ever drop. I have more time to discuss art, but unfortunately I don’t have the brainpower. It is probably being used up by my new fantasy: I become an extreme sports athlete with a specialty in surfing. I spend my free time posing for Surfer Magazine, designing my own swimsuit line, and, of course, working out with Oprah.

I suppose there could be some truths present in this fantasy. But first, I need to learn how to swim.