Be Careful What You Do Wish For: Grass is Always Greener Syndrome, Lamentations on Millennial experience compared to our Boomer Parents, The economy and The Peace I Have Made with It.

I dreamt forever about having my own house. When I first got married nearly 9 years ago I assumed we'd save up for and buy a house in 5 years or so. That seemed like a good long time and I thought we'd get a really cute little house with character right in the middle of downtown La Mesa, in sunny San Diego county where we both grew up. The houses at the time were pricey, but within reach for a couple who saved for a few years and had two decent paying jobs, which we both were on the way to having. But as time went on we seemed to never have a time where we both had two decent paying jobs. One of us would get a good 30-40k a year job and then the other would be in a lower paying job, or be unemployed. One time I got my dream job and then my husband's company let him go and shut down. Then my dream job turned out to be a nightmare in disguise and my husband got passed over for a promotion for a job that was literally what he was already doing and assured that he was going to get. That business also later shut down. Seems to be a pattern of businesses shutting down after they let my husband go. (Let that be a warning to anyone else who tries to demote him.) No matter how much money we saved, there would always come a time when for one reason or another one of us was not making as much money any more and we would eat into our emergency funds and savings. But even if we had been able to save that entire time, the housing prices just kept going up so you couldn't really even save enough money for a house fast enough to compete with the market unless you were already wealthy. A $400,000 house became a $600,000 house and it was pretty clear that with the jobs available in San Diego and the housing market we were not likely to get a house, not just in 5 years, but probably ever. As a side note: that's not an exaggeration either, most my friends still living in San Diego do not own a home, even 5 years later. Those that do really had to work for it, but also still find it difficult to maintain with rising taxes and mortgages.

Anyway, there was eventually one point where we both my husband and I were unemployed and had to move in with our friends, which was super fun, but couldn't last. Finally, we decided to move to Nashville where we could have new sights, new adventures and maybe a chance to actually buy a house one day. We lived in a crappy, old, not well maintained apartment, This apartment had cracks in the walls, the floors and a bathtub that looked like it was straight out of a haunted house. No amount of bleach could clean the stains. The floors were uneven, the cabinets crooked and the closet doors constantly coming off the annoying rails they were on. The blinds broke almost immediately upon barely touching them and at some point my husband actually literally fell into the floor. Luckily it was just his leg, but the wood under the tile in the bathroom had rotted and the tile he stepped on cracked revealing a giant hole into the deep crawl space beneath. 

That apartment sucked in a lot of ways, but it was also awesome because it cost $900 a month for a two bedroom right in the heart of the coveted hillsboro village in downtown Nashville. This area is an adorable suburb type area near the popular 12 South neighborhood, which is full of cute shops, delicious trendy restaurants,  and lovely cafes. Also in this area is Belmont University, one of the most beautiful campuses in the world and Sylvan park which has a historic mansion, a beautiful creek and a community center.  Every new shop, restaurant or experience in Nashville wants to open up in this area or downtown, which is only 12-15 minutes away depending on traffic. 

Beside being close to downtown Nashville and Broadway, the famous Music Row is also only a 10 minute drive from this area. So yes, the apartment was a tragedy, but the location could not be better. I could easily get to anywhere in the city and it is so central to any places outside the city as well. Brentwood, Donelson, Hermitage, and Bellemeade are all 15 minutes away. Franklin, Mt. Juliet and other popular cities are just 30-40 minutes away. That is why the houses in this area when we first moved to Nashville were selling for around 500-600k. That price was already high, but there was still hope because every once in a while a smaller older home would pop up for maybe 300-400k. However, it would be snatched up by a company who would tear it down and build two-three, sometimes even four tall skinny homes with no yards to replace the lot. Then those tall skinny homes with no yards would be sold for 700-900k. By the time we moved out last year the homes in our neighborhood were more like 1.5 million. 

So as you see, the dream of home ownership really became more and more pie in the sky because the harder we fought to save money and find and keep good jobs to sustain that savings, the worst the economy for job seekers would get and the more expensive the housing market would get. Things like the pandemic made everything harder for the finances of the working person, but somehow it only made home prices soar as people tried to escape California in droves. By 2020 a $800,000 home in Nashville sounded like such a good deal to those in California who couldn't find a home under 2 million and wanted less restrictions. 

You know growing up I'd always hear adults lament about things like how they should have invested in Microsoft stock or Apple, or they did, but they pulled out too soon. Everyone talks about how if they just started early enough things would have been so great, if they just got on board before the big wave hit they could have rode it to success. No one every talks about how sometimes you do see the trend, you grab your board and you do surf that wave, but woah what's that it costs $25 bucks to ride past this point? And you don't have a wallet because you're surfing? Ok, that metaphor took a weird turn, but you get my point. Everyone wants to act like if only they knew they would have invested, they would have got on board and made so much money, but what if you did know, and your hunches were right, but you just didn't have the money when you needed to dive in? That's where we were. We moved to Nashville in 2018, after growth had started, but things still hadn't reached the big boom. We just didn't have the money to buy a house. If we had then we could have seen, as many did in 2022, homes that sold in 2019 double or triple in value by 2022. When we did finally get the chance to look for homes I was just so sad to see that a home that was for sale for $350,000 often was bought for $100,000 just a few years earlier. Yes, they made improvements to the home, but not that many. In this case we saw the boom coming, we just were not financially able to be part of the boom. It's a boom bummer, a boomer if you will. 

However, this story does have a happy ending, we did eventually get a house! Instead of 5 years into my marriage like I had thought, it was 8 years in, which is astounding to think about when comparing to my parents. It really amazes me how much our country has changed for the average working man or woman. I believe my parents were married when my mom was around 23 or 24 and they had both me and my brother by the time she was 28 and a house. That house was huge and cost like $250,000 or somewhere abouts. The same house went up to a million sometime in the early 2000s. To think that any of my friends would be able to own a house and have kids before age 30 in this current economy is laughable or astonishing. It's just so rare. I am both amazed by how long it took my husband and I after getting married to finally find some basic financial stability and buy a home, and grateful to finally have one. It really is not an easy world right now to find things our parents had like stable incomes, a spouse or a stable living situation. It feels almost like we were lied to when I think about the message we got early on about what life would be like when we are older, and the things we could have if we worked hard. I know the adults didn't lie, they just lived in a completely different world, but many of those same adults don't seem to realize this. They say the world has changed with one breath, but then talk smack about our generation for being lazy and not working hard with the other. I am thankful my parents don't have this opinion of me, but I have seen and heard it from others.

I started this entry with the intention of speaking on how I feel now, that I am a homeowner. I have to say I feel lonely and isolated. There was a lot more going on in the trashy old apartment complex. It actually was becoming a nicer place to live when we left, but also because of that the price was going up and up every year to the point where we would have had to move anyway. I am so thankful I have a house and that God allowed us to save enough to get here. I am thankful for my parents help and advice in finding a house and I am thankful we are finally here at a place I thought may never come. However, I miss seeing my apartment neighbors and having people to say hi to. I miss being close to the city, the action and everything that was constantly changing and moving forward. I miss the beautiful Belmont campus and the flowers planted outside that changed every season. I miss the experience of being near people and near it all. Having a home is a great achievement and I now have space to actually own nice things. I wouldnt go back to the old apartments if I had the chance, but I sure wish we could have afforded the homes nearby where we already lived. That neighborhood is for those who got locked in years ago and the uber wealthy, or maybe the californians who left for greener pastures and had a home in California that had appreciated. I may never live in that area again, but I am thankful I got to. Even if it was in a trashy apartment I am grateful so the time I shared there and getting to be a part of the lovely city and the people who came and went from there. I miss it when I am at home unable to leave because the nearest cafe is too far to get back in time for my work break, I miss it when my car is broken down, like right now, and I am unable to leave at all and nothing is in walking distance. I miss it when I don't see a single neighbor for days and it feels like I may as well live in the mountains, but without the peaceful serenity. 

The scene conveys a sense of community and hope for the future, emphasizing the importance of embracing and finding joy in the present moment.

Be careful what you wish for because even when you get it, there will be problems and you might not like it as much as you thought. Just like I did when I lived at the apartments, I must learn to love and accept the things around me. Accept the new downsides and focus on loving the upsides. I continue wishing the economy will change and more people can buy homes near me so I can have more friends and more places to go nearby. I keep wishing for more money so maybe I can one day live somewhere that has things within walking distance nearby again. But I should remember to be careful what I wish for.

Being careful what you wish for means realizing that what you have now, is what you once wished for. Therefore we should take time in the present moment to appreciate where we came from. Though I started telling this story with the intent to discuss my current feelings of loneliness, reminiscing about how far I have come to get here reminds me how precious here is. Being careful what you wish for also means remembering that you will always wish for something else or something more, so it's a discipline in itself to practice gratitude for what you have. Otherwise we will never stop wishing or trying to find the next greener pasture. You already have the green grass you need right here right now. Be mindful of what you wish for.