There is a difference between losing something and putting it down on purpose.
Most of what I write about in this series is the first kind. The floors, the noise, the light, the furniture that does not fit. Things that happen to you in a small home whether you agree to them or not.
This one is about the second kind. The things we gave up deliberately, knowing what we were giving up, and why I would make the same choices again.
The one that hits hardest.
Travel.
My wife and I both traveled a good amount before we decided to have a family. That is the thing we gave up that I feel most.
It is absolutely worth it. I want to be clear about that, because it is easy to write a sentence like the one above and have it read as regret. It is not. Raising small children is a rollercoaster and every day brings a new challenge, and I would not trade it.
I am not thinking of travel as something we lost. I am thinking of it as something we postponed. When the kids are older, we will travel with them and show them the world. That is not a consolation I tell myself. It is an actual plan.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Giving something up forever is a loss. Giving something up for now is a trade, and trades can be good deals.
The yard.
The other big one is space. A yard, a plot of land, room for the kids to run.
We chose the city instead, because the schools are better and the work is here. So we have a small balcony facing the courtyard rather than a garden.
We see the other side of that choice every summer in Serbia. There we have a house in a small village where the kids can run. There are almost no cars, so it is safe and quiet in a way the city never is.
It is also further from doctors. The food in the shops is not as good. There is less of everything else a family needs.
The trade is real in both directions, and we have lived both sides of it. At the end of the day we do not want to raise our family there. We want what the city gives us, and the price of that is the balcony instead of the garden. (By the way, I very much dislike the city… but I am also realistic about my situation… one day I will have that garden and get the f*** out of here)
Knowing the price does not make it painless. It does make it a decision rather than a disappointment.
What we spend it on instead.
We do not have a car. We do not buy fancy things.
That is not frugality for its own sake. It is so we can invest in the kids and in the time we have with them.
Everyone tells you they grow up too fast. Everyone is right, and there is no way to hear it properly until you are inside it. We try to enjoy the moments, the sunny days and the rainy ones.
My architect point of view and what I have noticed.
Here is something I see constantly in how people talk about their homes.
Most of the frustration is not about the space itself. It is about not having decided. You end up in a small flat, and the things you cannot do feel like things being taken from you, one after another, with no say in it.
The same flat feels completely different when you can name what you chose and what you got for it. We chose the city. We got schools, work, safety, a shorter commute, doctors nearby. We paid for it with a garden and, for now, with travel.
Nothing about the apartment changes when you say that out loud. What changes is whether you are living inside a decision or inside a disappointment.
That is the mind shift, and it is the whole reason I keep writing this series. The home does not have to change for the feeling to change.
The part worth being honest about.
Not every trade-off is chosen. Plenty of people are in a small home because it was the only option, and telling them to reframe it would be insulting.
So this is narrower than it sounds. Some of what you have given up, you chose. Some of it you did not. Knowing which is which is the useful work, because the first kind can be reframed and the second kind has to be accepted, and they are not the same job.
One thing to try this week.
Write down one thing you have given up because of where you live.
Then answer two questions about it. Did you choose this, or did it happen to you? And is it gone, or is it postponed?
That is the whole exercise. Most people find that at least one thing they have been mourning is actually waiting and that it has a rough date attached if they let themselves think about it.
What is the biggest thing you have given up to live where you live? And do you think of it as lost, or as postponed?
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