What’s the difference between a home, and a house?

There’s a vast difference between having a home and owning a house. Anybody can own a house, but not everbody has a home. A house has furniture, with a roof, basic utilities such as water and electrical supply. A home, on the other hand, is all about comfort, happiness and love. The moment we step into a home, we feel welcomed. It’s comfortable, with a delicious aroma of home cooked food pervading the air; with hearty, musical laughter filling our ears; with stories of today’s events, tomorrow’s hopes.

I bought a house recently and I turned it into a home. How did I do it? Why did I buy it? What did I do to transform it? These are the questions that have been swarming me, like butterflies.

When I first set my eyes on my new apartment, I was ecstatic. It was my first piece of property that I owned, that I had bought for myself, something that I had been yearning for a long, long time.

From the balcony, the house had a really nice view. It has a three-hundred-and-sixty- degree view of cute, white washed houses with pink thatched roofs, surrounding a swimming pool, with tall, swaying coconut palm trees by the poolside.

When I looked out, right in front of us, was this tall building, all lighted up in light blue, in the shape of an upside down ice cream cone, cut into half, with its tip pointing up towards the sky.

I fell in love with the place instantly. Not only it had a superb view, interiorly, it had loads of book shelves, loaded with books! Who could ever forget that sight? A library, a study, and a nice view. I had it all.

The same night itself, I paid for the deposit and signed the necessary documents.

Reasons for purchasing a house?

Had I known that the legal process of purchasing a house required 6 whole months, I would have searched for my own house much earlier. (Okay. I was forewarned. But I just chose to ignore it.) Unfortunately, I am an impulsive person. I only began to search for a house fervently online when I just couldn’t’ stay with my housemates anymore. They were dividing everything equally into exact equal portions. If one used more electricity, one had to pay more; If one consumed or left the tap flowing, one had to pay more. However, the chief tenant forgot one thing, she had a TV, a fridge, and a washing machine, which all of us did not own, nor had the rights to use it. How could this be fair at all?

It came to a point where I just couldn’t take it anymore. No bringing back of friends of other nationalities and other ethnic groups; implementation of an RM 3 fine, if one of us did not sweep and mop the floor for 3 weeks consecutively; sharing of plug points even became a major catastrophe. That was when I began my search for a new house.

Cleaning Frenzy - Fun. Frantic. Frustrated.

After five months of longing and anticipation, I finally got my keys. I leapt at the chance of moving out all my things from the rented room to the spacious new house. I would hear no reason of delaying the shifting date.

On the day I received the keys, I scrubbed, and cleaned, wiped and mopped the tiles, the floors, the skirting, the windows and glass panels. Little did I know however, that the house was infested with termites. As I bent down on all fours to scrub the wooden bedside cupboard, I noticed a big hole on its right. As I mopped the parquet on my tiles, little holes appeared at almost every square inch. The last straw was when I went to the study room to move the furniture. The moment the parquet vibrated, all the little, minute creatures came scrambling out of its deep, dark den!

My hair stood on its end as the little pests came out continuously in armies! Just like the cartoon! All the while, my heart was screaming, “Damn! Damn! Damn! Why did I ever bought this house?” The tiles are dirty, the book racks are spoilt, the drawer is broken, the lights are dim, there is no fan… “ the list was endless.

By mid-day, I discovered an additional point. At 6am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and 9pm daily, the nearby mosque would be airing its sermons and prayers, using the loud speaker. Personally, I don’t mind listening to those soothing Quranic verses. But, when a person starts telling its citizens through the loud speaker on how to behave, on how to treat your parents with more respect, on the importance of giving ‘zakat’, I start feeling so guilty because I am a sinful person.

At the end of the day, I was so angry with myself that I sat down and cried at the cleanest corner of the house. I was immensely depressed. For days I drowned in my own sorrows. I had just spent all my savings on a imperfect house (which I deemed to be perfect, initially), and now, it was at a un-ideal environment. What will I do about it?

Any difference between being positive and living in denial? Definitely, Yes.

I checked my budget, my savings and found that I had emptied every penny out of my pocket. I was penniless. Renovating the house was not an option. So, against the advice of everybody who loved me, I stubbornly shifted in. Living in denial, I kept telling myself, “Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. You just have to save up and renovate it bit by bit,”

“I love this place. I can live with it.” I told myself, constantly repeating it like a mantra in my head.

As I lied to myself, as with everybody else, I never once set foot into any of the rooms because the moment I stepped onto the parquet, I could feel the creepy crawlies climbing up the skin of my neck. In fact, I had to wear slippers around my own house because every cupboard, every window, had a hole in it, screaming, “Termites! Termites! Scram! Scram! Scram!”

My mom almost cried her heart out when she saw what a pathetic state I was living in. Broken windows, broken tiles, broken pots, and broken window panes. All leading towards only two things- broken home and broken hopes.

In any culture, I believe, everybody wants things to be perfect. If it’s not, we’ll always want to fix it and make it right. Restoring things to its original condition, is somehow within the core of our human nature. And well, what can I say about mothers? No matter how much we hurt them, they still treat us with such delicate care, patiently waiting for us to regain our conscience, searching for our own true selves.

So, despite my shouts and protests, my mom put her foot down. “Jean! Renovate the house. Don’t worry about the money. Let’s use the savings that I have for now.” And without waiting for my answer, she immediately set about contacting contractors to provide the quotation for the full set of renovation works specified.

Me, on the other hand, being as stubborn as a mule, protested vehemently. Refusing to accept reality. Until today, I strongly believe in financing all renovation works from my source of funds, even if it meant digging deep into my pocket. I dislike the idea that I was depending on my parents or their handouts. If I am able to do it, I feel a great sense of achievement.

But, since we live in an Asian society, parents always have the last say. Ultimately, I gave in. I moved out of my house once again and stayed with my aunt and her family for five weeks!

Burning with anticipation, Drenched in ice

Needless to say, I was counting the days towards the completion of the renovation date. I awaited in ardent anticipation. The contractor promised me that it’d be ready within 3 weeks time. By the end of the third week, I was harassing the contractor on the phone every single day, asking her, “Is it ready yet? Can I move in yet? Can you do the renovation works, while I’m staying in?”

Yet, the contractor always lifted up my hopes and crushed it with a big, heavy hammer. “Yup! It’s done! You can move in by the end of this week.”

Yet, when I was just about to move in, there were always something still not done - the lights, the plumbing works, the windows, the furniture arrangements.

I was devastated. “You said it would take only three weeks!” I moaned and sulked and mumbled to myself, after each conversation. Okay. So, I was a spoilt brat, expecting everything in life to go as planned and scheduled.

But hey, all of us need to wake up to reality sometime, Jean. You just can’t control everything right at your finger tips, neither can you have everything you want at the snap of your fingers. Life is all about learning how to handle disappointments, resolving issues professionally and protecting relationships you hold most dear. Being emotionally alert, aware and attached, to your dearest ones. Easier said than done.

Grumbling, of course, never helped. So once again, I drowned myself in my work and started working late in the night. Consoled and contented, I finally relented, caved in to the fact that I should just allow the river to run its course. Not steering it towards the destination I intended.