A Smaller Version of Our Lives

­I used to stand in the kitchen of my 3500-square-foot dream house complete with swimming pool, half basketball court, Jacuzzi bathtub and walk-in closet the size of a small bedroom and think to myself, “How did I get so lucky?” I’m a poorish girl from a lower-middle class neighborhood ­raised by a hardworking single mom on hand-me-down clothes and haircuts from the barber college. What blessed thing did I do in a previous life to deserve so much? Now, almost four years after moving out of my dream house to one slightly more than half its size—no pool, my clothes smashed into a “too small” closet, a bathtub so small it’s only been used once by an adult, and a basketball hoop neglected, hanging over the driveway, home of our two parked cars that won’t fit into the garage packed full of things that don’t fit into this smaller version of our lives—I stand in my new kitchen, the size of my former closet and think the same thing…How did I get so lucky? But I have to admit it’s taken me quite awhile to feel this way again.

My husband was an executive vice president in an industry so full of hubris it closed its eyes to the technology that would end up redefining it and in turn resulted in him, and countless executives like him, becoming not only unemployed, but also unemployable. A month being out of work became six months and then a year and so on.

He now does consulting from home and has some steady clients and good results, but so does everyone else in his former position—competition is fierce and independent work is in short supply. He tried switching to different industries, willing to start at the bottom and work his way up, but employers couldn’t seem to wrap their heads around a smart, successful man in his mid-forties being willing to do a job for less money and a less important title. He was willing, but sadly, they weren’t.

I left the business world as an underpaid, overworked marketing assistant to raise our children. I could have gone back to work, but I literally made a tenth of what he did—not nearly enough to support us in our current lifestyle. I’m smart and I have a marketing degree, but I don’t really have any skills. I half-heartedly started a home-based business selling kitchen tools at home parties to women looking for an excuse to drink wine with their girlfriends on a school night. I convinced myself that the best thing I could do for our family was to do this part time and stay home with the kids. If I had taken the time for any type of self-reflection, I would have been surprised to see the woman looking back in the mirror looked nothing like the feminist my mother tried so hard to raise.

After three years of living off my husband’s payout, our money was running out and the time had come for us to move to a more modest neighborhood. We wanted to stay in the same school district and found a nice house in a neighborhood about twelve miles away where a girlfriend of mine lived. The day we moved it was pouring (and I mean pouring) rain. The symbolism wasn’t lost on us—our sadness and disappointment falling like giant tears out of the sky. When the moving van pulled up to our house, I looked at my husband, and stealing a line from a movie said to him, “Just remember that no matter how much we hate each other today we love each other more.”

I wonder sometimes if my husband feels like he’s failed me, but I didn’t marry him because he made a lot of money. I married him because he’s smart and he’s funny; he makes me think and he makes me laugh every single day. I married for love. The fact that he was paid ridiculously well to do a glamorous job was just the icing on a cake that was already incredibly sweet. And after 14 years of marriage he still makes me think and still makes me laugh; so, no, he did not fail me, not in any way.

When we first moved into this house, I kept my head up and tried as hard as I could to have a good attitude. “It’s just a house,” I would say. “We are happy and healthy and rich in love.” And I meant it, I really did—but it was hard. I missed going to expensive restaurants and ordering take-out when I was too tired to cook and being able to walk into the mall and buy whatever I wanted. One day as I was doing laundry in the cold, damp garage instead of my beautiful laundry room complete with a sink and linen closet, I called a friend and cried. “I know it was just a house, I know we have our health and that we’re still in love, but nothing, not one thing in this house is as nice as my old one. It’s just not fair.”

“I know,” she told me and listened while I threw myself a pity party, like good friends do.

Over time we adjusted to this house. My husband painted every single room rich, warm colors so unlike the white walls of our old house. We met friendly neighbors who invited us over for wine and appetizers on Fridays while the neighborhood kids rode bikes and played in the yard. I became very involved in the school that I was able to walk my children to every day. I took a job at a nearby elementary school that provided me with a paycheck, insurance and a schedule that gets me home before the kids get out of school. One day as I was walking our dog at our beautiful park, I realized that I may have less than I had before, but I am not actually less happy.

In many ways this house suits us more than the last; it’s more comfortable, more cozy, more “us.” I do miss that big closet but mostly because I’m a slob and liked to stack things in it rather than put them in their proper place. And truth be told, all that counter space in my big kitchen was mostly used as a place to store more clutter.

Recently we had some neighbors over and I was standing in my kitchen, laughing out loud with my head tilted to the sky at something my husband said.

“He still makes you laugh like that?” my friend’s husband asked me as he walked in to get more wine.

“Every day,” I answered, “Every single day.” How did I get so lucky?