I will be so glad when the kitchen is finished. It won’t be a dream kitchen. We didn’t set out to make it a dream kitchen, just to make better use of the space we have, but I feel like this will probably be my last chance to get any of the things I want and so I’m feeling sort of desperate about certain things. On some things – most things – I don’t have a problem compromising but a few things are more important to me and I feel like if they’re not exactly the way I want them I might start crying and never stop.

Actually, I’ve gotten my way on so many things, and not only those “important” things, I feel like I’m being too demanding and I don’t want to be that way but there’s that desperate feeling… And getting my way on several less important things does not make up for not getting my way on even one of those really important details. On the other hand, if we were paying someone else to do all the work I wouldn’t feel bad at all about being demanding. I’d feel that paying someone a lot of money to do something gives me the right to demand that it is absolutely perfect. Oh yeah, I’d be that client – the one they’d call “That Bitch” back at the office. But on the third hand, it seriously annoys me that demanding that things be done the way you want them is usually considered “bitchy” if it’s a woman doing the demanding.

But anyway… so far I’m liking the way the kitchen is shaping up. As I compromise on one thing after another what I settle for turns out to be something I can live with, and even like. The floor for example – I wanted a blue floor the same or similar to what I had and was not willing to consider any other option but there was nothing anything like what I had in mind available anywhere. Now I like what I finally picked out as well or maybe even better. After the floor is installed (who knows when!) there will be only a few more things left to do – a few more compromises. I’ll be glad when the last compromise is over and done with so I can start simply living with my new kitchen, so it can come to seem merely normal.

For many years, starting when I was about 12 and continuing until long after I was old enough that I should have been more realistic about things, my favorite hobby was “planning” the house I wanted to live in. I drew floor plans and planned the decor. The “dream house” changed from time to time. Usually the floorplan was something I considered practical and reasonable, though sometimes the decor would be unrealistically high-end. I know this is terribly melodramatic but it was always such a big deal to me, almost like a religion, that it often seems tragic that I have never lived in and never will live in a house that I really like. For a long time I didn’t want to make even the smallest improvements to this house because it would mean I was giving up the dream. So I guess I have given up the dream but I’ll still keep dreaming it. I guess I got it from my mother. She is almost 77 and I think she still thinks about what kind of house she would like to live in if she could have any house she wanted.

So now I guess I’m trying to make lemonade out of my lemons but still wishing I had started out with… what? I don’t know… If I was a wine person I would say “wishing I’d started out with grapes so I could make wine” but I don’t drink wine (I’d rather have lemonade) so that doesn’t work for me. Tea, maybe? So I’m at a loss for a good analogy and that itself somehow seems appropriate.