Stalled in a start-up life

One of my favorite things about being a newlywed was how new and bright and shiny everything was. A year and a half latter, eh, not so much. We've broken a few plates, and chipped many of the remaining ones. A spatula snapped in half yesterday. Our Ikea dresser drawers are now held together with duct tape. Our pots and pans have the finish scrapping off, and our attempts to reattach the handle on our frying pan haven't been very successful.

Don't get me wrong, we have all we really need, probably more than. Frying pans don't really need working handles per se, they just making little things like moving it less hazardous. I know how lucky we are, how grateful I am to those who have helped us get to where we are. But I still want more.

I never used to feel this way. For most of undergrad I was fairly thrifty, especially in the housewares division. One of the nice things about sharing a run-down apartment with 5 other girls is that there isn't any pressure to build up and nice home-goods, everyone just sort of contributed what we had to the kitchen and we made it work. No one had particularly nice things (largely because with 6 girls using them, they didn't stay nice for very long). Besides, they wouldn't have matched the patchy linoleum and pealing painted cinder blocks.

That first shopping trip to create the apartment was exhilarating. We had boxes of gifts stacked up at home, and a solid handful of Bed, Bath and Beyond giftcards to begin, we came back with a loaded car and a receipt as long as my arm. Sure, it was a price-conscientious version of going to town; bargain waffle irons and economical dinnerware isn't the most exciting spree. But it was the first part of us putting our little starter home together. The shiny new beginning was intoxicating.

The thrill of a starter home is mostly gone now. I find myself clicking through the lives of people with coordinated furniture and solid cookware - a real, established home, a grown-up life. Alas, the life of full time students surviving on student loans and the kindness of family is still very much a starter life.

I know that the internet is the worst kind of perfection. It's like continually going over to your perfect friends even more perfect house, only she can blindfold you until you're at the best parts, and edit out any unpleasantness. But, even if what I want is really an illusion, I still ache for when (if?) that time in our lives is ever going to show up.

However, I'm no economist, but I do like the concept of trade-offs. We could both be working full time at halfway decent entry level jobs right now. We would probably live somewhere nicer and use those fancy paychecks for all sorts of shiny things.  But what we wouldn't be doing is this. Much as we complain, we both want to be in school. We love enveloping ourselves in new ideas, making that the focus of our lives for a few years. We want the freedom to take our educations and use them to pursue jobs that inspire our passions, not just put bread on the table. That is the life we really want, and that life just so happens to come with a period of broken frying pans and making do. I hope I can remember that the next time I break a dish or swear at the stupid frying pan for the umpteenth time.