Most people are crazy productive in their 20s. I was productive, but not the life changing kind of productive society expects of us in our 20s. Buy a house and a car, choose your life and career path, get married, have a kid or two, develop this wonderful sense of who you are. I met approximately zero of those expectations while in my 20s. Although I did get engaged at 29, best decision of my 20s by far. Mostly I was busy doing homework for a degree I would never use, driving my high school coupe and cleaning my apartment. It seems I looked societal expectations right in the face and said, “screw you”.
Okay, perhaps standing up to expectations in my 20s isn’t entirely true. But rather I was just playing the cards I was dealt and as it turns out my dealer is exceptionally slow. Add a slow dealer to my fear of decision making and there you have it… a chicken playing the longest card game in history. I mean there are times I don’t even want to choose a restaurant for dinner for fear that I will be disappointed when I think of a better place while at my first choice. This is no joke. Ask my husband who is rarely laughing at my indecisiveness.
Despite a slow dealer and my fear of decision making, Bill and I are buying a house! Thank God for my husband because if I were left to my own devices finding the perfect home would have taken so long it would have turned into looking for the perfect nursing home instead. After a whirlwind few weeks, we are officially under contract, inspections are done and our loan was approved. This little chicken is excited! Excited about owing a home and even more excited about DIYing the hell out of it!
We provided our lender with every penny ever made and spent in our lifetime, made an offer after spending 10 minutes in the house (the biggest buying decision in my life thus far, but hey who needs time to decide… not this chicken), signed a large number of documents filled with legal jargon without a lawyer and spent a chunk of our savings I may or may not have rather used to go to Ibiza.
We did it. Our first home. Thanks to my slow card dealer I’ve learned how to beat the game by making my own rules and setting my own timelines. I spent my 20s not buying a house. Or having kids. Or choosing a career. I couldn’t be happier.
Now I am saying screw expectations (and fear). Make your own rules. Then break them. And buy a house. Or go to Ibiza (it really is a toss up).
A Pinch of Opinion 