There are seasons where nothing is falling apart and nothing is being built from the ground up. The foundation is already laid. This is the season I’m in.
It feels like the house is built. I’m comfortable in it. I’m living in it. But I’m not trying to maximize it or turn it into anything impressive for the outward eye.
I could furnish the house with fancy lawn decorations and host gatherings every weekend. But in the long run, when the house is 50 years old, those things won’t be what mattered to me.
Because having a house isn’t beneficial if it isn’t maintained by the person who must live in it.
Maintenance is tedious. It’s ongoing. It’s made up of all the boring things. Understanding plumbing, keeping pests away, maintaining cleanliness, making sure everything works the way it should.
I have a friend who owns a home that's over 100 years old and I see the effort that's put into simply maintaining. Not new furniture, or adding on to the home. Simply maintaining. It made me think more about the energy required. It's something to think about. The home is still standing even through hurricanes and it's old age.
Beyond observing my friend, I never really thought about the tangible effort needed to maximize the lifespan of a house until I actually lived in an old one, and then a new one.
That’s when I realized how much happens over time and how each day, in small ways, the owner decides whether the house will last.
What will matter are the things I’m tending to now. Boring parts that are so tempting to skip or put on the backburner. If not that, they feel overwhelming because there is absolutely always something to maintain. It can feel dreadful.
I’m not sure where this urge to focus on the monotonous came from. I feel a deep pull to not start anything new. I feel satisfied with my plan, and I just want to work it. & I realized that maintenance decreases anxiety by *a lot*.
I’ve never done this before. To go back to the house analogy, I’ve always moved from apartment to apartment choosing based on what I wanted in the moment, not what I wanted to sustain. In an apartment someone else is maintaining & less responsibility is required. In a home it's all on you & what you see for yourself and the longevity of your home.
Lately, it feels clear that the boring things are going to be worth it for me. My weekly budget. My cleaning routine. My creative routine. I'm trying to follow them like a religion because they honestly do make me feel whole, complete and like I'm in control of my life.
Also, my creative routine is actually a routine.
I never thought creativity would require structure, but being a full-time creative paradoxically means it can’t run my entire life. I’m not willing to give my creative career up, and I’m also not willing to let it overwhelm me.
So I realized I needed systems and that’s also apart of my maintenance plan.
These systems aren’t exciting. They don’t feel good in a shiny, immediate way. Sometimes I want to skip them so badly and just do the exciting things. But they also feel stabilizing which is a new, slower form of happiness that I've been observing within myself.
It’s very new for me but I kind of do like it.
I’m not trying to transform my life through excitement right now. Excitement naturally comes because life can be unpredictable. It feels better to maintain the structure that can carry me through all my inevitable transformation, changes and unpredictabilities.
This is a maintenance season. It’s boring but I know deep down it’s necessary for longevity.
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