Dream home

You win a contest to build your dream home. Draft the plans.

I shall dare to dream.  I have thought about these things before, many times.  I have thought about spherical rooms and observatory towers.  I have thought about hot tubs in bedrooms and expansive decks.  I have though about secret passages and trapdoors.  I have thought about marble, wood, and stone.  I have thought about the inclusion of plants and the approximation of outdoor spaces within a home.  Pillars, waterfalls, streams, movie screens, libraries, and vaults.  There are so many possibilities.  Money can buy so many things.  But you could have every single one of the features listed above and be unhappy, miserable, and even suicidal.  How many celebrities are dripping with cash and drowning in sorrow?  John Peterson had a “ranch in Colorado, a beach house in Mexico, exotic vacations and two private aircraft” (New York Post).  He also “boasted of owning a Wyoming cattle ranch and homes in Brazil” (New York Post).  Tragically, this man took his own life.  (If you are interested in this individual and related information, you can watch the documentary about Herbalife on Netflix.)  It wasn’t enough.  Despite having all those “homes”, Mr. Peterson no longer wished this planet to be his residence.  If I am to take anything from his situation, I must get back to the drafting table.

You have to have a strong foundation: God rock.  You don’t want your dream home slab cracking or shifting.  There will be plenty of storms and floods.  The walls that hold it up will be people: my wife, my children, me, my extended family, my friends, my guests.  We will be in a constant state of renovation, innovation, and activation.  The love we have for our toddler will take different forms as she grows.  A new baby will mean a new place of love: two rooms with adjoining hearts.  I will still have my cool features, but slightly translated.  My spherical room will become open and honest conversation.  My observatory tower will be considering multiple perspectives in the search for Truth.  My waterfall will be an overflow of apologies and forgiveness cascading into a stream of tranquility and laughter.  My secret passage ways will be doing kind things for people without their knowledge.  Trapdoors will be dumping out frustration through humility and making fart noises.  And these things will make an excellent home until it is time to move on beyond this world.  But lest someone delve deep into my desires and use my one material conceit to expose my hypocrisy and cast me in a sanctimonious light, I will publicly declare my one true yearning in the material world.  I want two facing shower heads, no more sharing.  That is the epitome of material luxury in my book.  However, if I were to inhabit a house that lacked this watery wonder but included all the metaphorical elements mentioned above, I think I could manage.  If you want an awesome, enduring dream home, pay attention to what you are dreaming.