Slowly then Suddenly: Maturity and Progress

 

How to Measure Growth: Yardsticks and Old Photos

A friend of mine gave me some Chicago Cubs memorabilia recently. 

His girlfriend is from Chicago and as such, was cleaning out her rental space and forgot about it. Fans of any time will recognize the bobble head souvenirs of their favorite players. There was a Jeff Samardzija bobble head, a Ryne Sandburg figurine and mini wooden bat with a list of the starting lineup from a particular year. Anthony Rizzo’s name is listed on first, as well as Junior Lake in the outfield. This bat had to be around 2012 or 2013. I might be a few years off. I don’t think Castillo was there in 2016 for the World Series win but his signature is also on there.

Temporary State of Mind

It was a nice gesture to offer me the items. I’ll probably keep them wrapped up for a while though. I feel like I’m at a transition point in life. I love my house but it’s a bit small and I’m not sure how long I’ll live here. The idea of selling my place for a much larger fee than what I paid is almost too much to ignore. I started painting 2 years ago. My 3^rd bedroom, which I used as smoke room, needed a lot of Kils paint to cut the smell down. Toward the end of its usefulness, I was using an attic fan to blow out the excess smoke. The smell wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but still needed a full do over. During that year I started thinking about selling. The place needs more work of course but it was a start.

Mostly it’s a fleeting thought. I won’t move just to move. I need to have a place to go and a reason to leave, but the thought is always top of mind. Why? I guess you outgrow things sometimes. For those who made marks on the wall every year as a kid, the mark moved up occasionally. Or rather, you remade it whenever you got significantly taller. The height mark in inches on the wall was a realistic reminder of where you’d come from. You had nothing to do with the growth itself, only the mark. God grows us up after all. I don’t remember having a spot on the wall where I regularly checked my progress. The closest I came to that was the Buggs Bunny sign at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. He held a vertical ruler with the official height required to ride the roller coasters. Eventually you get to ride, everything before that was childhood.

Imminent Promotion Close By

There are other Knick knacks and memorabilia I’ve held on to since I bought the house. Part of me never wanted a shelf or display to show them off. That felt too permanent, as if I’d need to be ready to move again quickly if the need should arise. What would constitute a “need”? It was always ill-defined in my head, something important for sure though. Marriage, career and business opportunities all come to mind. Maybe it wasn’t realistic but the sense of imminent promotion clouded so many of my decisions. Not that I live out of a storage closet, but I’ve held off on turning this into as comfortable a home as possible. In recent years I’ve changed that trend a bit. A fair amount of the reluctance to organize the house is laziness too.

The painting, new flooring and electrical upgrades are all improvements I wouldn’t have done in the first couple of years. I can look at the few changes I’ve made the way a toddler looks as the mark on his bedroom wall. I’ve grown a little. Progress comes slowly for some of us and quickly for others. But it’s better to say that it’s slow for years and then, very fast. It’s like my favorite quote from Ernest Hemingway on how one goes bankrupt, “Two ways. gradually then suddenly”. Kids seem to grow tall (boys at least) right before junior high. In grade school they grow slowly. Before long they’re young men seeking a future and we all wonder where the time went. They were growing the whole time but we didn’t always notice.

Conclusion

I’m hoping my home is in a similar situation. I’ll occasionally catch older photos I took during my first few years. The detached garage was a real disaster before that one Memorial Day Weekend. I tore out a lot of rotten wood siding and replaced them with new planks. My Dad and brother helped me replace the roof with plywood and shingles the next year. I painted it shortly after that. The yard is less weedy and at least 2 of the trees are gone. It’s not exactly rapid progress, but I’ve added value.

There is more to do. I don’t know if I’ll ever sell it. Maybe I’ll turn it into a rental property and buy a condo. Wherever I end up though, my next home will have a space for the Chicago Cubs memorabilia. And possibly a vertical yardstick along one wall, so my kids can measure their progress.