This should only be fun

Back last year, when Mark and I were still in Blacksburg and spent our evenings studying updated house plans from our architect, Ryan, we got into some big fights. Rarely were they about the house itself—most of the fights were about more important issues, like how we talk to each other, how we solve problems as a couple, and how we disagree—but many of them ended in one of us saying, "Let's just not do this." 

Looking back, I don't know if either of us were ever serious. We owned the land already; what else would we do with it? In retrospect, I think it was just a way to highlight how miserable we were making each other. It also acted as a reminder of another common saying between us: "This should only be fun." I don't know who said it first, but Mark and I both agreed from the beginning that it's outrageous to get too bent out of shape about the rare privilege to design and build your own house. If the process is going to be so unbearable, why do it in the first place? 

I'd like to think we have made it through construction keeping fun at the forefront. I have even enjoyed some of the more arduous tasks, from cutting down trees and stacking firewood to running buckets of water back and forth from the top of the road to the bathroom to clean grout from the shower tile. After spending several years in grad school, where my job was solely to either write or talk, working with my hands and body for the past six months has been—can you believe it?—pretty fun.

Until recently. I don't know if it's from the schedule delays, caused by the confluence of unreliable subcontractors and unrelenting rain, but I am no longer having fun. I don't look forward to walking into the house. I don't find joy in the work I'm doing. I'm not especially proud of the end result of a lot of the tasks I've completed. I don't want to do this anymore!

But I still show up six mornings a week and put 10 or 12 or 14 hours into projects that must be done. Nail holes need to be filled, whether or not it's fun to putty them. Our loft needs a guard rail, whether or not it's fun to figure out how in the hell to construct a guard rail that will keep a person from falling to their death. I need to trim our pocket doors. The carpet upstairs needs a transitional piece so people don't trip. I dread these tasks. Sometime this week, though, I'm going to do them. 

It was naive to think that building a house would only be fun. A more accurate mantra would have been, "This will only be educational." Because on days when I am low and repeating over and over in my head, "I hate this, I hate this, I hate this," I am learning something—from small things, like the way construction adhesive works, to big things, like how to be more patient and kind with the people who love me. 

This has not been fun. But damn, am I learning a lot.