A Letter On Embracing Imperfect Homes
My Dearest Friend,
As we prepare for another move, I find my thoughts drifting less toward the new city and more toward the house that will hold us there. Not because I expect it to be perfect — experience has long since relieved me of that illusion — but because I know, now, that the house will ask something of us. It will come with its own proportions, its own constraints, its own quiet negotiations between what we hoped for and what is actually possible.
The last time we stood on the brink of a new duty station, two floor plans arrived in our inbox while we were still packing the old life into boxes. They were the only options available to us, and we were given only a few days to decide. Declining meant returning to the bottom of the list, waiting an uncertain stretch of weeks — or months — for another offer, all while orders were already in motion and our household goods were scheduled. So we studied the drawings carefully, compared the layouts as best we could from afar, and chose the one that seemed the better fit.
When we finally stepped inside, the discrepancy was not a matter of imagination adjusting to reality. The rooms were, quite literally, smaller than the plans we had been sent. Dimensions did not align. The careful deliberation we had undertaken felt suddenly weightless, as though we had been solving the wrong equation altogether.
I remember the sharpness of that moment — not outrage at imperfection, for we have never been strangers to that, but the quiet sting of realizing that what had been represented and what now stood before us were not the same.
And yet life was not pausing to accommodate our frustration. The movers were arriving the next morning. A TDY loomed only days later. There was a toddler whose sense of stability would depend, in no small part, on mine.
That evening, instead of rehearsing the discrepancy, I sat down with paper and pencil. I measured the rooms as they were. I sketched their true proportions. I cut small shapes to represent each large piece of furniture we owned and moved them carefully across that outline until every object had a place to land. The square footage did not expand. The rooms did not correct themselves. But something within me did. The act of tracing what was — rather than dwelling on what should have been — restored a measure of steadiness.
If this was the house we had, then we would shape it.
On Refusing to Live Half‑Settled
We have never lived in a house that fit us seamlessly. Not in size, not in layout, not in the way a dream home is described in glossy language. Given the nature of this career, we may not for many years to come. But I have come to understand that there is a subtle difference between acknowledging limitation and living in quiet resistance to it.
Within two weeks — I always give myself two weeks — the house begins to soften. Bookshelves rise, not merely to hold novels and board games, but to divide space where walls are lacking. A room that was intended to serve one function becomes several. Furniture shifts with intention rather than apology. Photographs climb the walls in familiar arrangements. The gallery returns. The shelves of well‑loved games find their corner. Slowly, the structure that once felt imposed begins to answer to the life unfolding inside it.
Visitors sometimes remark that our layout feels different from theirs, even when the blueprint is identical. I think what they are noticing is not architecture, but attention. The house has been claimed — not perfectly, but deliberately.
On Tradeoffs and Choosing with Clarity
As we look toward another assignment, I am reminded that even the question of where we will live is often shaped by conditions beyond our control. In some places, housing is optional. In others, it is mandatory unless occupancy shifts in ways we cannot predict until arrival. Choice, in this life, is frequently conditional; we decide within parameters that are handed to us rather than designed by us.
And still, within those parameters, there are tradeoffs.
More space may mean more distance from base. Living in town may offer upgrades, but at the cost of proximity to neighbors who understand the rhythm of late‑night calls and abrupt departures. On‑base housing may come with narrower rooms or maintenance that requires patience, but it also brings children running between houses and adults who require no explanation for the demands placed upon a family.
There is no arrangement that costs nothing.
When we stopped searching for the version of home that would grant us everything at once and instead asked what mattered most to us in this season, something in us relaxed. For our family, community has outweighed square footage. Proximity has outweighed polish. That choice has not erased inconvenience, but it has given it context. Once we named our priority, the house ceased to feel imposed and began to feel chosen — chosen within constraints, yes, but chosen nonetheless.
Intentionality quieted resentment.
The Lesson
An imperfect home is not evidence of failure; it is often the natural companion of a life in motion.
Comfort is rarely handed to us fully formed. It is assembled — through rearranging, through creative division of space, through the repeated act of hanging the same photographs in yet another place and allowing familiarity to steady us. You can acknowledge that a house is smaller than you hoped without allowing that fact to dictate the atmosphere of your days. You can grieve the absence of ideal without withholding warmth from what is present.
Home, in the end, is less about flawless dimensions and more about deliberate inhabiting.
To the Spouse Standing in a House That Doesn’t Quite Match the Plan
If you are looking around and thinking this is not what I envisioned, you are not ungrateful; you are discerning. It is natural to feel the tension between expectation and reality. But no option in this life will be without cost. The question is not how to secure perfection, but how to choose wisely among tradeoffs.
When you decide what matters most in this season — commute or community, space or proximity, upgrades or understanding — you gain a steadier footing. From there, you can begin to build. Measure the rooms if you must. Rearrange. Hang the pictures anyway. Let the house become yours not because it is flawless, but because you have invested yourself within it.
The walls may not match the drawing you were sent.
And still, they can hold a very real home.
