I have just realised that it is exactly 6 years ago today that I got the keys to my house and moved in. For someone who has had 30+ addresses in their life, to have had the same address for 6 years is a big thing. The longest I have ever lived anywhere is for 7 years and that was the family home when I was 11 – 18 years old. So you can therefore tell how unsettled my life has been for the intervening years to have had so many different addresses.
It’s not been easy staying put, and there have definitely been times when I have had itchy feet and have just wanted to run away and start all over again somewhere new – the way I have done so many times in the past. In fact, moving on and starting afresh is one of my best skills. And maybe that accounts for the obsessive cardboard box collection.
But when I moved into this house, I made a conscious decision that it was time to really start to put down roots, and so I have stuck it out and 6 years on I am still here. There have been some very strong urges at times to simply walk away from the house, the mortgage and the life I have here, and it is only because of being stuck with a Northern Rock mortgage (which I can only get rid of by selling the house at hopefully more than the value of the mortgage), that perhaps I am still here.
But that said, I do love the place. I moan and groan about being rurally isolated, but I would hate to go back to town living. I moan and groan about having no central heating and only one warm room in the house, and the cost of coal, and the work involved in cleaning out and lighting the woodburner every day, but even if I had the money, I’m not sure I would want it to be much different. I love the location, and the luxury of watching the wildlife whilst washing up, and watching the seasons change the view, and the fresh bite of the wind straight off the mountains. I know I am lucky. I know many people would envy me. But it has meant sacrifice and hard work and tears and stress to keep my very own roof over my head. But it is my castle.
Ok, so the windows rattle in the wind, and the curtains billow to and fro, and there’s bare plaster walls, half stripped wallpaper, and bare floorboards, and damp walls, and leaking gutter, and ice on the inside of the bedroom window in the winter but it’s a work in progress 
And so today I shall not be depressed or stressed. Instead today I will replace all negative thoughts with counting my blessings. And I shall not allow myself to feel guilty about being depressed when I am so lucky to even have a roof over my head, let alone a home which belongs to me (well, the bank) (well, actually the government).
I fell in love with this house the day I came to view it. I knew I was going to do my hardest to get it before I had even seen inside. The location and the views were more than I had ever hoped for. I remember being so delighted at the size of the kitchen and the yard and the garden. Everything just felt so right. And when my offer was accepted I was thrilled.
Not only did I love the house, but it meant that I could escape the difficulties I was in at the time, unhappily trapped in a stressful live-in job which had caused a major mental crisis, and which I was desperate to get out of. Unfortunately, by the time I’d found the house and got the keys, the damage had been done and the past 6 years have been spent trying to move on and recover from that. I haven’t really been right ever since.
But I shall banish the unhappy memories as I have said that today I am going to count my blessings. And my little delapidated and draughty home is a blessing. I am very lucky.
