From the Editor’s Desk: Lightening the Load (Premium)

My wife and I spend the first hour of every day reading and drinking coffee, before heading out for a 40-minute walk. And we start off reading the same publications, The New York Times and the Washington Post, and so we’ll often comment on headlines or stories, or recommend that the other read something they enjoyed or thought they’d find interesting.

The other morning, my wife asked if I’d seen a Post article called 8 tasks for your July home maintenance checklist. I had seen the headline, but I had scrolled past it. She recommended checking it out, and when I asked why, she just said that I’d see.

And so I found it and took a look. The 8 tasks are as follows:

• Create or update an emergency kit
• Tune up your garage door
• Check and repair play equipment
• Clip back branches
• Clear the ground
• Create or clean a home office
• Cull and clean bookcases and files
• Check hoses

I didn’t understand. This all looked pretty straightforward to me. So what?

“Almost none of those apply to us now,” she said, once again exalting in our newfound freedom from cost and responsibility in the wake of our house sale. She’s really into this, and she will always walk over to my desk when some new bill arrives. “I just got the electric bill,” she’ll say. “It’s only $50.” This compares to the nearly $900 we spent on electricity in January because that house uses electric heat. And we laugh, and we move on with our day.

In this case, however, I called back to her. “Hey, I think I’m going write an article about the tasks an apartment renter needs to do this July,” I told her. “There’s just one task: enjoy your summer.”

Oh, how we laugh.

It’s not all peaches and cream, obviously. But after a solid three months in this apartment, I’m still sort of surprised that we haven’t had any major issues. It’s not perfect, of course, nothing is, and I’ve written before that we’ll probably be getting a slightly bigger apartment when our lease ends later this year. But the benefits are enormous. And, as my wife noted as we talked about the tasks article on the walk later, it’s not just about money.

One thing I don’t fully appreciate, because I don’t experience it as she does, is the weight of responsibility that comes with having to maintain some giant structure and property and the impact that can have on you mentally. And it never ends. In addition to all of the routine day-to-day stuff—keeping the house clean, maintaining the lawn, shoveling the snow (or raking the leaves, depending on the season—there is an endless litany of stuff that can go wrong and always does. Trees that need to be trimmed or cut down. Sewers that back up. Roofs that need to be reshingled. And so on. And then longer-term, one-time hits like new air conditioners and condensers, a furnace, new windows, and so on.

Keeping on top of that stuff is draining. And it’s in addition to all of the normal day-to-day stuff, most notably her job, which consumes her as much as mine does me. And I can only imagine how those unfortunate life moments that get in the way can only serve to pile on: for example, our daughter gets in a car accident in North Carolina and then my wife spends three full days going back and forth with our insurance company, the other person’s insurance company, the car rental company, the repair shop, and of course our increasingly distraught daughter. Meanwhile, I’m over there in the corner wondering why dinner is taking so long. I know. Hero.

We both have different responsibilities, and shared responsibilities, too, of course. We communicate all the time, but she maybe doesn’t complain about the load as much as she should. But I think our different experiences living shared lives explains why I’m still sort of on the fence about what I want to do next with regards to living arrangements—maybe we could buy a townhouse or something, I’ll suggest occasionally—and my wife looks at me like I’m nuts. She doesn’t ever want to buy another home.

I get it. I really do.

But transitions are hard. You gotta feel out the new situation and make sure it’s what you want. And you’ll make mistakes. About a month ago, we got a $200 bill for a regularly scheduled gutter cleaning at the house we no longer own, and my wife had to deal with both the company that did the work—they were nice enough to reduce the price to $100—and the house’s new owner, who was upset that people were at her house without her knowledge and didn’t think to thank us for footing the bill. People. What can you do?

But every once in a while, you get a reminder of what’s changed, and in this case, it’s often a good thing. “I just got a notification from Google Calendar,” my wife literally just called out. “It was a reminder to schedule a driveway resurfacing in July.”

Perfect. That’s someone else’s problem now.