So, I hit 35 a while back, and folks started buzzing about this “house year horoscope” thing. You know, that year in your life when big things are supposed to happen with your home, according to some calendars or stars, or whatever. I wasn’t a huge believer, but you hear it enough, and it kinda sticks in your head, especially when you’re already in a bit of a life-is-happening phase.
My situation at 35? Well, let’s just say my living space was feeling less like a home and more like a shoebox we’d outgrown. With a growing kiddo, the walls felt like they were closing in. So, this “house year” talk, it landed right when we were desperately needing a change of scenery, a bigger place. It was almost comical, the timing.
So, what did I actually do about this whole “age 35 house year horoscope” business? My “practice,” if you can call it that, wasn’t about deep astrological dives or paying someone to read my tea leaves. Nah, my record of that time is much more down-to-earth. It started with me thinking, “Okay, if this is the ‘house year,’ maybe it’s a cosmic kick in the pants to get serious.”
First thing, I pulled out the calculator. Not very mystical, I know. I sat down with my partner, and we really looked at our finances. What could we genuinely afford? What were the absolute must-haves versus the nice-to-haves? This was the real groundwork. No point dreaming if the numbers didn’t add up. We made lists, we argued a bit, we compromised. That was step one of my practical “horoscope” interpretation.
Then, the hunt began. Oh man, the endless scrolling through online listings. The weekends spent traipsing through other people’s houses, trying to imagine our life in them. Some were awful, some were okay, some were way out of budget. It was a proper grind. There were days I felt totally deflated, thinking, “This ‘house year’ is a bust.” I remember telling my wife, “Maybe we just build an extension into the sky, I don’t know!”
I did, I confess, glance at a generic “house year” blurb online at some point. Just out of curiosity, you understand. It said something vague about “establishing roots” and “significant domestic changes.” Pretty standard stuff, but it did feel, well, relevant, even if it was super general. It was like background noise that sometimes made sense with what we were going through.
My actual “record-keeping” during this time was more like a spreadsheet of properties, notes on each viewing, and a slowly growing pile of mortgage pre-approval papers. The stress was real. We put in an offer on one place, got outbid. That stung. We recalibrated our expectations. More searching. More viewings. It felt like a full-time job on top of my actual job.
And then, after what felt like an eternity, we found it. Not the dream palace, not the perfect Instagram-worthy home, but a solid place with good bones, in a neighborhood we liked, and, crucially, within our budget. The day we got the keys, that felt like the real culmination of the “house year.” Standing in that empty living room, with the echo of our voices, that was the moment.
Looking back, was it the stars aligning for my 35th year? Or was it just the natural progression of life, needing more space, and finally having the means (barely!) to make it happen? Probably a heavy dose of the latter. But I gotta say, having that “house year” idea floating around, it sort of gave a name to the whole crazy, stressful, ultimately rewarding process. It was a label for a chapter, a story I could tell myself and others. So yeah, that was my practice, my record, of navigating the age 35 house year – less horoscope, more hard work and a bit of luck.