You Don’t Need to Own a Home to Start A Life

Yesterday evening, I asked my new husband what he was most excited about in our marriage. He said “starting a life together.” When I asked him to expand on that, he said, “You know, buying a house, starting a family, all that.”

We got married about 8 months ago, and have been dating for over 5 years. I couldn’t help pointing out to him that this is life. Right now. Today. We are living our life. Even though we don’t own a home.

He’s not the only person who feels this way. A lot of the rhetoric around “growing up” or “adulting” focuses on life in the future. As kids, we heard “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and “You can do anything you want when you’re older.” As adults, we say, “When I hit this milestone, then real life will begin.”

But what if we start asking ourselves and each other, “What do you want to be today?”

Millennials feel behind. It’s hard to say who is ahead of us. Our parents, I suppose. I feel behind at times, and my husband does as well. We’re both in our early 30s. Even though the median age for a first-time home buyer is 32 years old, our generation’s parents owned homes much earlier. And most of them had kids younger as well.

Maybe these milestones we use to measure our life’s progress are no longer applicable. Student debt and the cost of housing have made the former generation’s steps into adulthood almost null. Sure, getting married is great for the stability it brings, and I’m sure homeownership is as well. But for me to feel like I did something wrong because I was a 30-year-old bride?

That’s messed up.

Were our parents’ lives more meaningful because they bought a house at 23? Or because they had children at 25? Sometimes, sure. But certainly not all the time.

My husband and I already have a life together. A full, meaningful, happy life. Dog included. A three-bed, three-bath is not going to make us feel suddenly complete or adult or real. I do want to buy a home, but financially that isn’t feasible right now. And that is OK.

What I want more than to own a home is to build a solid foundation with my partner. To learn how to communicate in the middle of this whole being married thing. And then, once that is in place, we can add a house on top of our sturdy foundation.

Just because we haven’t purchased an over-priced set of four walls doesn’t mean our life is not real. That our life has not already started. In fact, our life together started when I saw him from a block away, nervously waiting in front of District Taco, ready for our first date.

So I ask you, my friend, what do you want to be today?