Hidden damage? I feel ya, house.

Our house was having a midlife crisis. Good thing we are the right age.

Every home has a secret problem, something unsexy and foundational. It never reveals itself during the home inspection, but after you do something cute and cosmetic, like remodeling the kitchen or screening in the deck.

Our current house took nearly a year to confess its secret. First, there was a vague stench near the back of the house, then a ripple in the paint by the corner, then an ice dam inside our patio doors. Still, we talked about fun things, like new windows.

Then, one brave evening after the window salesperson left, we started investigating this malfunction junction - prying up carpet corners, peeking behind drywall, poking loose deck boards. We found extensive water damage due to a mess of neglect over time. We needed to remove the deck, replace the sinking patio, correct the gutter, and repair everything touching that corner.

There would be no new windows.

My husband and I are handy people. Being on a perpetual budget tends to make one handy. We contacted my brother-in-law, who is handier than us, and devised a plan. Everything but the concrete was something we would do ourselves.

It would be hard work, the sort no one would see when it was finished.

The days were long. Summer arrived early, which was good for drying out the house but miserable for working on the house. Black flies plagued us. The aluminum siding cooked us. The damaged deck fought us. We uncovered nasty things, like raccoon bones, poor patch jobs, and spiders worthy of the silver screen.

Every evening, after a wordless supper, we would drag ourselves to the hardware store to get the necessary supplies for the next day’s work: drywall, tar paper, concrete sealer, fly swatters, and whatever else we had scribbled on scrap paper with a contractor's pencil. We’d get home, unload our supplies, shower, mumble goodnight, and fall into bed.

Our first handful of hardware trips were miserable. We were sapped by the sun, middle age, and each other. We bickered about direction, questioned each other’s approaches, and agonized over what to put in the cart.

The last few trips were actually enjoyable. We knew the aisles as well as we knew our project, cracking jokes and dumping things into the cart without discussion. Our hands bore splinters and blisters yet were deft and undeterred. We were making progress.

I credit some of our mood shift to hope. According to researcher Dr. Brene Brown, hope is a process, not an emotion. It involves knowing what you want, having an adaptable plan, and feeling agency in executing that plan. We were definitely feeling our agency. And, possibly, our age.

This house is approaching 50, much like my husband, brother-in-law, and me. I don’t know if buildings have midlife crises, but it wasn’t hard to stretch the metaphor with this house – the secrecy of the problem, the poor patch jobs, the interconnected damage.

I feel ya, house.

Over the last year, I’ve been assessing the malfunction junctions in my life, striving to make those unsexy foundational repairs no one can see. It is soul-blistering work, but I am undeterred as hope has turned the initial misery into agency. This might be why our unglamorous home repair feels more cathartic than cruel.

Either that, or I need a nap.