Why I Love Renting

 

I know that there is a high pressure based on societal rules to fall in life with the enforced milestones of life, you know, like getting the college degree, hitching up, birthing the 2.5 kids, and buying a house.  But, for my life in residence, I have been a renter throughout. I used to be looked down for this, another regulation enforced by society, that if you don't fit into the status quo, if you are different, you are wrong and somehow broken.

But, as I drive about my beloved home town of Ashland, I marvel as I travel past all the former places of residence, or even, the places I called home because they hold some significance, whether it be an old friend or flame's abode, a former work environment, or something in between, and this reality of my existence warms me to the core.  I've mourned as I watched the demise and destruction of a place I once called home and continued to feel the absence as I pass by where it once was.  

Added to that, as I busy myself with the joys of nesting and all that goes into behind a domestic homebody, I love finding the little artifacts left behind by former residence, mostly as the seedlings they planted continue each year with fresh blooms or rather other little garden memories. 

Looked at from a purely financial aspect, when one buys a house they purchase a mortgage through a bank, rather the bank or lender covers the cost and the buyer pays back with interest until the loan is paid off.  Rather, rent, aside from the event that the landlord or lady raises, remains at a fixed amount with no interest.  

One's rental lease may be signed for month to month or a year whereas buying a house remains yours as long as you maintain the payments and is permanently yours after the loan is paid off, unless you decide to or need to sell.  But, as learned in the housing crisis of 2008 (am I dating myself?), in the extreme event of financial hardship and recession, paying the mortgage becomes an increasing anxiety (where is the  money?) which could result in foreclosure.  

Being a renter and being at the whim of one's landlord runs the risk of losing one's residence as being a home-owner and defaulting on payment one's the risk of also losing one's residence.  Thus, the truth of a physical residence is a precarious residence and finding the home within is crucial to permanently feeling grounded wherever one lands and has an address.

There's No Place Like Home