My Dream Was The Big House On The Hill

Coffee steams out of my mug as I wrap my mittens around the warm ceramic.  DJ is already ten steps ahead of me and I watch his fuzzy wolf hat flitting across the grass and through the century old buildings nestled next to the small pond.

He loves being here as much as I do.  At his grandparents farm, on the land where his dad and I got married, he runs in and out of the barn where we said ‘I do’.  Soon, I’m pulling him in the red wooden wagon next to the tree we blessed during our wedding ceremony and my dad helped us plant the next day.

I’m dreaming about the day when we put down roots of our own here and raise our babes up on the land we love.  I close my eyes and envision myself there, baking bread in my kitchen that over looks the beautiful valley with the kids playing across the room.

Little by little we’re making our dream a reality

This is the dream my husband and I have shared for the past three years.  We want to build our home on the land where we get married.  I remember sitting in our living room, our two week old baby on my chest when Joe first proposed the idea.  The idea of living in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere (even more nowhere than we are right now) caught me so off guard but something about it felt right.  

Since then, little by little, we’ve gotten our plans together.  We purchased the land that joins his parents last summer and we’ve spent the last year fleshing out what this dream house really looks like.  For me, it looked like the big house on the hill.  I unconsciously designed the house to be the house we lived in when we “arrived”.  There’s a table table that seats ten, a music room with wide windows where we can spend Christmas singing carols and watching the snow fall outside while stockings hang on the fireplace, there’s a screened in porch where the light will stream in and we can enjoy summer happy hours, there’s a pantry the size of my current kitchen and an island bigger than our kitchen table.

My dream of the big house didn’t give me the margin I want in my life

I mean this house was my dream and it was perfect.  But as we started to make steps towards this dream I realized there was a problem with it.  It felt like it was beyond our current capacity, As we started to break down what building my dream home would look like I realized that this house didn’t leave us enough margin, financially, physically, or emotionally.   

It didn’t leave enough room to live fully into the life that would happen inside that big house.  It felt like we would be sacrificing too much of our peace of mind and everyday joy for this dream in the way it existed in my mind. The more I meditated on it, the clearer it became that the big house won’t ever give me the margin I need to truly live into my dreams.

I need margin for other dreams like building a green house, having an in home sauna, Joe to having the flexibility and time to show up for our kids, a big garden, capacity to write a book someday, have another baby.  These are just a handful of the other dreams I have on my heart.  And space to live out all the other dreams that God has planned for me that aren’t even on my radar yet. 

I was designing the big house for when we “arrived”

After stepping back from the big house I realized that I wasn’t designing it to fulfill my soul’s dream.  I designed it mostly to fulfill what my ego told me success looked like.  I designed the big house for what life would look like when we “arrived”. 

There was a disconnect between what my life looked like at that time and what I wanted my life to look like.  I had the expectation (however delusional) that my life would look the way I wanted it to when we were living in that house.  It’s not that surprising, really, that I fell victim to this way of thinking because it’s constantly being pushed on us in our culture.  

I had to stop looking at the magnificent kitchens on Pinterest.   I had to stop paying attention to what my friends were doing.  I had to get off of IG and looking at the house that the successful blogger was building.  I needed to step away from the distractions so I could see what was truly my own authentic path.  When I did, I realized that my dreams were a lot more humble and simple than I ever realized.  Building the big house actually directly contradicts what my dreams really consist of which is more space to enjoy the simple gifts. 

It took me a long time to figure this out because I got distracted by the curb appeal and what it looked like.  But the truth is, inside of that house I know I won’t ever “arrive”.  Not when I’m living in the house on the hill, not when all my kids can wipe their own butts, not when all the dreams in my heart have come to fruition.  There will always be something more that’s meant for me so I want to have eyes to appreciate what’s meant for me right now. 

My dream is evolving so that I can have space for the dreams I’m living today

There’s nothing wrong with the dream of a big house except that for me the promise of the big house and the life it represented kept me from appreciating what was meant for me now.  And that in pursuit of that dream I was losing margin in my life for the dreams that were truly in my heart. 

So we’re changing course a little bit.  And instead of building the big house on the hill I’m drawing up plans for a medium sized bandominium on the hill.  I had to explain to my cousin and my mom that a barndominium is when you build a pole building which is like a giant shed and build a house inside of part of it and use the other side for a large garage/shop.  This makes so much sense for us and the way we live.  Never in a million years would I have thought that a pole building would be my dream, forever home.  But for all the reasons I just talked about, the life it will allow me to live, it is.  And I am so excited.    

It leaves space for the other dreams that are in our heart.  It allows space for life to present itself to us and for us to actually be open to that and receive it with open arms instead of fighting for our own plans feeling like we’re always treading water to stay afloat and keep the wolves away from the door.  

Now, Instead of stressing over a dream that felt too big, I have a newfound freedom and joy that comes from really living within our means so we can always prioritize the most important things.

We don’t have to hustle our butts off to achieve “the dream”.  We don’t have to sacrifice the quality of our life now for later.  We have the margin to work towards our big, God dreams while still appreciating the dreams we are living right now.  

Allowing enough margin is part of the answer

So the question I posed at the beginning of this episode has part of its answer.  I think this is an art that I will continue to explore and talk about but I’ve found a big piece of the puzzle.  And its margin.  We can work towards our big, God dreams while being fully present for the dreams we’re living now when we allow enough margin.  If our big, God dreams are so big that they don’t allow us the margin we need to live the way he wants then maybe they aren’t actually the dreams God put into our heart after all.  Maybe they are dreams manufactured by our society, our ego and our expectations. 

So it’s good to hold onto our dreams loosely and allow space for them to evolve into what’s truly meant for us. 

Thank you so much for listening here.  When thinking about the gifts I’ve been given, having the opportunity to have this podcast and share my heart.  This is a gift.  Thank you for being here and for listening, for telling your friends.  

I’m taking a three week break before I kick off season two.  And there will be a season two!  So please use this break to catch up on any episodes you missed.  And please leave a review!  Reviews help new listeners find this podcast and decide if they’ll like it.  Please also message me with any topic ideas for upcoming episodes.  You can message me on IG.  Meg M Rohs.  I’ll see you in a few weeks for the next season of the Mothering Joy Podcast.