We have a house

I still can't quite believe it

I keep saying it out loud.

To my husband. To the dogs. To myself, while I’m brushing my teeth at 11pm.

We have a house.

Last week, we got the keys to our new place in North Vancouver. And I still can’t quite believe it.

(Yes, this is absolutely why I’ve been a bit absent the last few weeks, but that’s what happens when life is life-ing and it’s been so good for me to focus most of my attention here.)

We had been searching for about six months. And if you’ve ever tried to search for a home (or a short-term rental or a hotel) with accessibility in mind, you understand why we were getting frustrated.

We had very specific needs.

One level. A garden — flat, ideally, so I could get around in it. A neighbourhood that was easy for me to get around in. Modifications we could reasonably make to move in shortly after.

And listing after listing, it was: “Oooh this could be promising” only to find steps from the kitchen to the living room. A surprise basement. A garden terraced on the edge of a cliff.

Not ideal.

Then this one appeared. The perfect house (for us).

One-level living? Check.

Big flat garden? Check.

Easy to add ramps to the doors? Check.

Livable with just a handful of modifications? Check.

We were in love. We knew this was the one.

And after a really stressful bidding process with 8 (!!) other offers where we had to work really hard to manage our expectations, it’s ours.

Four weeks later, we have the keys and a contractor and a growing pile of decisions about paint and light fixctures and where the ramp should meet the back door.

I commissioned a painting of the house for my husband’s birthday this week! Courtesy of the wonderful Sheila Davidson

But in the midst of all of that, I keep landing at the same place.

We have a house.

A house that will be ours. Accessible to me. Always.

It’s not that our apartment hasn’t been good to us — it has. But there’s a particular kind of low-hum vigilance I’ve gotten used to.

Worries about the elevators going out of commission. Planning around whether I can manage both dogs on my own when my husband is away.

This changes that.

Well, not all at once, perhaps. I don’t think the instinct to brace unlearns itself that quickly.

But the possibility of not bracing. Of just exhaling into a space. That’s new.

On the day we submitted our offer, this is what I wrote in my journal. I’m going to share it, because I don't think I can say it any better now than I did then:

I’m trying to exist in the reality, the timeline, where we have this house. Where I have an office of my own in which to write and create and be me. We are those people. We are the versions of ourselves that can own that house, live a life in it, expand into it, and take care of it. We are those people. The people who will learn how to grow a gorgeous garden, who will get to know our neighbours, who will casually go visit friends in the area, and have them drop in.

We are those people — the eldest kids of migrant families and high pressure environments — who will learn to choose ease in that house. We will learn to exhale and find more joy. We will discover who we each are without the stressors we’ve gotten used to. Our chests will learn to unconstrict. Our shoulders will feel lighter. We are the people who will live in that house.

I've read that back to myself a lot in the last four weeks, and I tear up every time.

Because what I think is actually, slowly, settling in is this:

My experience of life as a disabled woman is that I’m always bracing for things to go wrong.

It makes me strong, and resilient, and inherently adaptable.

But it’s also exhausting.

And now there’s going to be a place in my life where I won’t have to brace in the same way. That alone makes me exhale.

Before I sign off, I also want to name this, because it’s sitting in my chest too:

I know this isn’t something everyone gets to have. Housing that is accessible to disabled folks, that meets all of their needs, is brutally rare. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

Part of why this feels so precious is exactly because I know how many disabled people are still fighting for it, and how much of that fight is systemic, not personal.

I’m holding both. The privilege, and the unfairness of it.

I don’t think that’s going to resolve. I think it’s just what it feels like to get something good inside a world that doesn’t hand it out fairly.

But I know it’s something I want to keep talking about. I want to keep being involved in helping other disabled folks make this a reality for themselves. Whatever that might look like.

Chat soon,

A