Rebecca has mastered the art of figuring sh*t out. Resourceful, deeply contemplative, and innately attuned to her surroundings, I was intrigued to hear her story of moving into the dilapidated house she and her husband are also restoring.
It wasn’t what I expected.
So here we are, ‘unpacking’ Rebecca’s experience, and what really helped her through it.
“From the moment I saw the view of the hills through the side of the house, it was like my nervous system took a deep belly breathe and exhaled”.
Rebecca wasn’t intimidated by the damage, the damp, the lack of plumbing or electricity or the windows that needed replacing… “It was our house, and that was that.”
Her husband is an architect, so they threw themselves into it. Little did they know that the actual renovation would be the easy part.
Despite the initial high, things spiralled quickly. Surveys revealed tens of thousands of pounds of unanticipated work, accompanied by extortionate quotes from contractors. Cost of living exploded; their outgoings increased exponentially.
Alongside this, Rebecca’s business and mental health collapsed, which meant relying solely on her husband’s salary and spending money that should have been set aside for the move, just to live.
5 months in, with no exchange in sight, they were exhausted “we were running on empty, financially and emotionally” she shared. Add a barrage of aggressive and threatening behaviour from the vendors, they almost gave it up.
When finally, they did complete, they then couldn’t move in “the builders just said no” she laughed. Without a school place for their daughter in their new town, she had no choice but to rent somewhere in London, while her husband focused on getting the new house liveable.
That milestone should have brought relief, but it didn’t. Essentially now living apart, the dynamic of their relationship completely shifted. “Out of necessity we had to divide and conquer, but it cost us our sense of togetherness.” Emotions ran high, tempers fired.
Their daughter felt it too, and her behaviour spiralled. “I wasn’t prepared for how disruptive this part of the journey would be for her” Rebecca reflected. “My role in this was to keep it all together, to keep everyone ok, but we were all suffering, I failed over and over again”.
What struck me most during our conversation was Rebecca’s ‘othering’ of her own emotional needs. On reflection, she recognises that she was already severely burnt out before they even started this process which ultimately pre-empted the collapse of her business and fuelled her anxiety.
But at the time, all she could see were her own failings. “The financial hardship which was the root of so much of this was technically my doing, but I was also the one holding it all together emotionally, I had no real support of my own.”
So, what would have helped, I ask?
Practical stuff to ease the mental load would have been amazing; healthy pre-made meals (especially when they were sans kitchen), activities that would have kept Arabella occupied for an hour. Beautifully scented candles made the new space feel like home.
“But really, I just needed to feel seen” Rebecca shares. This resonated.
Like a lot of us, she kept much of her experience to herself. Partly, because she wanted to spend the limited time she had with friends in a positive space, detached from her actual reality. Partly because she felt so privileged to be renovating such a special property, but mostly, because the pain was invisible, and it just felt so hard to articulate. “All this just added to the sense of being in it, on my own”.
But it’s when this support would have been helpful, that most interested me.
Looking at the timeline of the move, it wasn’t once they were in (“my family were amazing”), it was the moments leading up to it, the unplanned periods of change and amidst the mounting financial pressures, where the stress was masked by the thinly veiled excitement, that she really needed to feel seen and supported.
“But” she smiles, “we made it.”
9 months and two different rentals after their offer was accepted, they moved in. “It was a glorified squat” Rebecca laughed. The house was nowhere near done; it was filthy, no bathroom, no kitchen, piles of rubble, tools everywhere… but finally they were exactly where they wanted to be.
