Anticipation vs. Reality

A blog friend I know has recently posted about the deep sense of disappointment that she felt after so many years of anticipating a move to a new life. How the anticipation and dreaming could never match the reality, and how she knew that this was normal but that the feeling that it left was an emptiness and a slight sense of depression.

She articulated a feeling that I think many of us can relate to. Many months, or even years, of dreaming and building up an image of something in our minds will never match up to the grittiness of reality.

I had been coming to the island here on holiday for about twenty years before the opportunity to buy a croft here came up. I was very conscious that my limited stays, filled as they were with delicious food, comfortable accommodation and short, curated snapshots of the island would be nothing like the reality. Especially as the reality for us was going to be a rickety old caravan perched on the top of a hill in a storm for a while.

We are two years into this adventure, almost to the day. I remember the long drive north with our dog Bertie in the back of the car. I recall the slight sinking feeling when I walked into the caravan for the first time, my senses assailed by the smell of damp and cold, and feeling, even if just for a moment, a huge wash of helplessness at what we had done. If it hadn’t have been for my ever resourceful and practical husband I think I would have been lost.

Arriving in the teeth of a storm isn’t the ideal way to start a new life, it has to be said. Almost unable to stand up in the gale force winds and horizontal rain, we started with no water, no toilet and only very limited levels of comfort.

Things got better. Husband connected up plumbing and the indignity of using a bucket as a toilet came to an end. The caravan dried out, and I made it more homely with cushions, books and blankets. An electric blanket made a huge difference to the shrieking horror of getting into a cold bed on the nights of a highland winter.

I remember the first day that we awoke to snow on the hills and being overwhelmed by the beauty of it all again, just like the first time I came to the island. The spell hadn’t gone away. The sense of magic was still there – it had just been temporarily beaten back by the weather and grim living circumstances. It was going to be ok. Better than that, it was going to be brilliant.

It seems appropriate to be reminded of all this as we prepare the final stages of the house ready to move into next month. The house won’t be finished, but it will have a working kitchen, a bathroom, heating and hot water, and space. It’s time.

Living a life with limited comforts lowers the bar of your expectations and makes certain things that most people take for granted seem like luxury.

Cooking in a space bigger than a postage stamp, for example. Having easy access to pans and utensils instead of having to perform improbable feats of gymnastic skill to get to the back of cramped and inaccessible cupboards.

A working, level oven that doesn’t spit your cakes out raked at 45 degrees like an ski ramp.

A shower that doesn’t force you into impossible contortions within its 40cm square plastic embrace.

I could go on, but I won’t. It’s been our reality for the last two years and for all it’s discomfort, it’s been completely manageable, and I know that there are people in the world for whom this would represent a world of luxury.

I’ve been careful not to build up too much of a dream of living in the house yet. I don’t want to be disappointed, to have that sense of anticipation shattered by reality. I know that we will still be decorating and building as we’re in there and that it will be many, many months before it’s finished and we’re fully unpacked.

But it’s coming. We’re so nearly there.