This is the backstory that inspired my post on twitter here. Although it was a material thing in this case, it seems to apply in other situations as well :)

There was this house one street over I used to pass every day when taking the girls to and from school. The house was pretty much like our house except that it had one thing that I loved about it: it had a cool balcony. I’ve always thought it would be neat to have a house with a balcony. Somehow, sitting on the balcony (or a nice covered front porch) seems like the most relaxing thing I could imagine. I actually went so far as to go to their house and ask them who built their balcony right after they had it put up.

We could see part of their backyard from our house and they had an above ground pool, a basketball hoop, and shiny lights around their balcony. I always thought it was just the coolest thing.

Well, a couple of weeks ago we saw that the house had gone into foreclosure and there was a (sad looking) real estate agent inside doing an open house. We walked through the place and it was tore up from the floor up. Doorknobs missing, stair railings missing, doors from closets missing.

The biggest kicker was the balcony that I coveted. I went upstairs to check it out and it was all crooked and not built securely. It actually slanted down, so it wasn’t even level.

It was just an interesting wake up call that I think about now whenever I pass the house to pick up my daughter from school and see the for sale sign out front.

It was sad to see but also good in a way.

Objects in the envy mirror are not as shiny as they appear :)