Change is Hard

I’ve been visiting a certain lake house for many years now. A close friend first hosted me there when I was in my twenties. Her mom was still alive and her six siblings zig-zagged in and out around me. There was water skiing, sunset cruises and farm-stand dinners with all of us gathered around a very long tavern table. The scene shifted as my friend and I each got married, and then shifted again when we had children, and shifted again when we each got divorced. Sadly, last winter my friend’s mother died, and I had my last visit there a few weeks ago prior to the house being sold.

All these transitions… it’s just how life unfolds. A series of “before’s” and then “after’s.” By definition, home renovations tend to create an after. They are frequently the response to life-changing before's, like a move, or a new addition to the family, or even something horrible like a fire. Long before I come to the scene, these after’s have been planned, saved-for and dreamt about for months or even years. And hurray, I can help them get it all done. What could be better, right? But the process can be long and disruptive, and we are messy humans - our emotions don’t always follow a linear path.

I just helped a client downsize. She’d been in the large home she raised her family in for a long time, the last chunk of it as a single woman. And as much as she loved the house, it became a heavy load. So she bought an amazing condo. It’s a converted church with twenty-five foot arched ceilings, giant pillars, and untouched details like the stained glass in her mahogany foyer. She loved it right away, and I helped her to customize this new space so it was as warm and inviting as her old. ?

She is very happy there, to be sure. But I honestly think the process left her with a little PTSD. Closing up shop on that family home of thirty years was painful. It was time, and it was what she wanted, but it was a lot of work and there were a lot of memories and the process was both exhausting and painful. And then renovating her new space was tough too. She shuffled between the houses of friends and airbnb’s for over eight weeks. She feared she wasn’t the anchor her kids needed her to be, and her life just felt upside-down.?

But hey, (you might ask) couldn’t she just keep her eye on the prize and suck it up? Sure, and I think she did. But, (you may also say) that’s a first-world problem, I mean boo-hoo! Right again, and she’d be the first to agree. But change still gets to be hard. Even much anticipated change. Even change that you had to do backflips to create, both logistically and financially.?

I have another client who is moving in to the home of her youth. She and her husband bought the home from her mother and, with me, she made very careful renovation decisions. We did a lot to that home and it’s beautiful. Along the way she juggled budget, function, and comfort to create a loving environment for her kids, her aging live-in mother and who knows maybe her father too.?

And now it’s time for her to enjoy the new space. (The end zone! She’s sailing into the end zone with the ball safely cradled in her arms!) And yet I sense her having trouble settling. Are the colors too light? Is the floor too dark? And we mull it all over together, but what I think she really needs is to rest her head on my shoulder so I can tell her, “You have done enough, my child. Now go live.” But we’ll see. Maybe an accent wall will help too.?

I have yet another client that is staring down the barrel of a grueling renovation process with nothing but good spirits. They live in a diamond-in-the-rough house and have invested heavily in all the thankless tasks a neglected house demands, like HVAC, septic systems, electrical work, etc. All that, and yet they lived through covid and up until now with semi-functioning bathrooms, a kitchen that doesn’t make sense, and a home that just doesn’t feel like… well, home. This project was indeed a multi-tentacled monster that needed to be wrestled to the ground. But we did it, and phase one of a three-phase construction plan is in play. So far, the joy of seeing progress is beating out the significant disruption they are enduring. And I so appreciate their good spirits for this moment in time. But I also give them a full allowance to have their moments of despair as the process continues.?

And what may catapult them into that state? Well, it could be anything. It could be the dust that ends up on their pillow in the morning. It could be an Uncle casually remarking that “we didn’t spend that kind of money in our day.” It could be everyone needing to share one bathroom on on game day. It could be a deep-rooted feeling that they are not deserving. Who knows? We are all messy humans.

What I do know is that change is hard. So be kind to yourselves, you home renovators, planners, and DIY-ers. Leave yourselves space to experience the mixed bag that comes with even an eagerly anticipated renovation project. Come rest your heads on my shoulder, and I’ll tell you it’s ok to feel that way. But keep the faith too. You'll get there, and when you do it will be pretty amazing.?

This article was originally published in The Manchester Cricket