why i can’t own anything

Last Wednesday morning with my eyes still closed in bed, I smelled something terrible and not to be dramatic but thought I was gonna die.

It was a kind of musty and metallic aroma and my groggy brain I was sure that we had a gas leak or our house was on fire.

I jumped outta bed, threw on my robe, and flew downstairs to find nothing out of the ordinary at all.

I woke Brandon up and his techie sniffer immediately said “It smells like burning electronics.”

We turned off the heater and submitted a maintenance request with our property management company who sent a contractor to look into it a couple hours later.

It was, indeed, a fried motor in our heating unit. Not a dangerous smell to sniff at all, apparently.

HOWEVER, the heat guy said that he was surprised a fire hadn’t already started over night and he’s glad the smell woke me up 😳 😳 😳

This gave me a backwards heart attack from the few hours prior which doesn’t make sense but you know what i mean… i was FREAKED OUT

Anywayyyyy he told our property management peeps we needed the new motor thingie and they spoke to the homeowners who approved the purchase and the next day he came back to fix it and all was great in the world again.

The evening of the scary smellies, while B and I were brushing our teeth, we were talking about how great it is to just make a simple phone call and have other people worry about all that shit.

We also discussed how lame that probably was for the owners and were like “man it must suck if the couple that owns this house was just like on vacation and they get a random phone call that’s like ‘you gotta pay this giant cost to make these other people comfy and warm in a home you never get to hang out in’ and it probably ruins their day”.

Our immediate thoughts and discussions were shared to confirm what a good choice we’ve made in being forever-leasers.

Like my subconscious brain totally blocks me from ever having positive thoughts about home ownership.

Logically, I’m fully aware these people technically possess an asset that will just feed them money every month when I pay them rent.

And I genuinely don’t know if heating system motor is $50 or $5,000 …but it ain’t my problem!

And that’s where my mind finds its peace.

As I’m typing this I realize that you reading this and are probs like “Andrea, we know how renting and owning works, just get on with it” and I knooowwww

I’m just saying that the resolve I get from knowing I just make a call when something goes wrong is PRICELESS to me.

And it’s not JUST because I like the flexibility of options and ability to change my surroundings (like we discussed previously here).

I’m just now beginning to see my aversion to owning for what it really is — a trauma response.

Because of the numerous experiences I’ve had interrupting my life or financial goals for home or car repairs, I create as much of a safety bubble around myself as possible by prepaying for that shit.

I’ve literally added an extra $100 per month to a previous vehicle lease for the “it ain’t my problem package” because of the issues I had with other shoddy cars before.

Speaking of specific ✨previous traumas✨, its likely I also feel so strongly about renting homes because of that one time in 2019 when we lost all our belongings because a burst pipe exploded our ceiling and flooded our whole apartment.

We had to live in a hotel for 2 weeks while finding a new place and itemizing every personal item that was destroyed in order to receive our renter’s insurance coverage check and start over.

Never mind THE FREAKING EMOTIONAL DAMAGE that came from the actual pipe explosion itself.

It was the loudest pop I ever heard followed by like 50 immediate gushing waterfalls out of every recessed light throughout every room of the place.

We grabbed what we could and scrammed out the door because I genuinely thought the ceiling was going to fall.

The fire department had to come.

My life was flipped upside down.

We were physically ok but life was in shambles for a bit.

And what if that happened in a home I OWED tho?!??

It would have been wayyyy more devastating for sure.

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Okay, so wtf is the point of this post…

For the last decade I’ve said to myself, and in conversations with others, that I hate owning things because I like flexibility and change.

And that’s true, BUT ADDITIONALLYYYYYY…

I just realized this week that it’s also a subconscious coping mechanism to keep me feeling psychologically safe from the life-altering events of my past.

I hate that it’s true, and it never fucking fails, that every single thing we do is a trauma response and it’s so annoying and basic of us lol

Oh well.

That’s all I wanted to say today 🙂

Thanks for hanging ❤️

xoxo,

AV