Home Is Where You’re Humbled

There are two people I’d like you to meet. First, meet Casey. He works a full-time job in a warehouse and recently bought a house for himself and his new bride. He works nonstop to fix up his house. Crown molding, recessed lighting, cleaning mold in the attic while donning a hazmat suit, new drywall along with a fresh coat of paint, cleaning out the crawlspace from a washing machine leak, patching cracks in the basement pipes while also reinsulating it during the winter cold. All this he does by himself, in between his work hours and time off on the weekends.

Then there’s me, whose home maintenance capabilities can be exemplified by the sounds of a running toilet echoing down the hallway for the first three years of being in our home. At some point I looked up YouTube videos and quickly became frustrated when I couldn’t find my specific model and gave up. Eventually, in the most emasculating possible way, my mom’s boyfriend fixed it in five minutes and, it turns out, consequentially saved me a substantial amount of money on my water bill which I’d been overpaying for years without knowing.

A house will humble you.

According to research, I’m not alone. With the advent of YouTube and the assortment of internet blogs, DIY has taken over the homeowning world — but not completely. According to polls, over one-third of American homeowners are unable to complete basic home maintenance without the help of the internet. The progressively growing group of incapability is … well, you guessed it: millennials (a group to which I belong).

And the thing you quickly learn about owning a home is how often maintenance is necessary. It quickly teaches you how little control you truly have. When we moved in, we immediately found out there was a small crack in our tile floor that the previous homeowners covered with a large entrance mat and our inspector apparently wasn’t getting paid enough to look for. Well, with the foot traffic over the crack and the cold weather of December, the crack spread and eventually became an issue after my son sliced his foot on it leaving bloody footprints down the hallway. Then the water heater reached its end of watch — a shriek in the freezing cold shower reveals this. And of course, my running toilet. Then a broken latch on the soap dispenser for the dishwasher — the sump pump fails (I was unaware of what this even was) which results in the basement flooding, and the outside lamppost isn’t working anymore, but the wire is underground, and I can’t even deal with the things above ground. Patches of deadening grass spread, plants you just planted start dying, and the last windstorm blew off a window shutter. Don’t forget the bird building a nest above the porch.

Living in a home will quickly humble you, especially if you’re not particularly handy. There’s a sense of powerlessness and helplessness that reminds you of your inabilities. And even though there may be a good chunk of people who have learned to submit their homes to themselves with wrenches, screwdrivers, and plenty of YouTube videos, there is a wide swath of us hopeless homeowners who find ourselves defeated and humbled. Our victories are the one time we cleaned a clog in the drain and heard songs of triumph echoing from the heavens above.

While a house may be just a physical entity alone, it takes on spiritual stakes. Our homes are representations of ourselves. More than that, a public display of our capability as a person. The wife is concerned her motherhood and homemaking reputation is up for debate when guests are nigh while the husband fears his respect as a man will be revoked if anyone sees a thing left undone or in need of repair. Not to mention the weight the culture puts on someone who is still saving or not yet able to afford a home.

According to a recent survey, whatever that means, 74 percent of respondents stated homeownership was the most significant symbol of economic success. This philosophy will lead one down the path of being humbled by a home without even owning one. That’s not to mention the shame produced from those who own homes that received financial help from relatives or employers in order to do so — I know this from personal experience. Even without the maintenance required, a home humbles in a multitude of ways.

However, in this humbling is a secret blessing. A house can be used as one of the numerous tools in the divine toolbelt to remind us of our incessant need for help outside ourselves. Whether it be the handyman we call who does good work but stays chatting for too long or the 36th YouTube video which actually has the correct model dishwasher I’m looking for, it isn’t me with the answers nor the fortitude necessary to make things right within my home. The average home has 9 repairs that need completion. A whopping 57 percent of homeowners feel their home is a work in progress with only 10 percent feeling on top of their maintenance tasks. And even for those with the capabilities to perform such tasks, there is no one who can prevent them from continually arising as they consistently seem to do. It is the nature of a home to be tended to.

In our humbling we find that we are still home. While the to-do list may go on for eternity, it is also true that a home wouldn’t be a home without such mediocre woes. A house that humbles us is a house indeed because the same house is a home which welcomes us. The key still opens the door even with repairs pending. It isn’t far off from a divine humbling, which may briefly cause our heads to hang only to see the welcome mat under our feet.