The guy from the gas company who came out last week to check if we had a gas leak didn’t look the part of a philosopher, but these six words out of his mouth definitely hit home with me.

As you probably know, I love houses, and my particular favorite type of house is a simple farmhouse built around 1910. There is something completely charming to me about the simplicity and the craftsmanship of homes built around that time.

I don’t live in a 1910 house. I live in a 1941 Cape Cod. And while I find my little 70-year-old home charming in its own right, I often find myself daydreaming about a crisply painted 1910 house with ample porches, tall windows, two stories, and a big farmhouse kitchen.

One thing I do love about my house is the wide kitchen window I can look out of while doing the dishes. My view out this window, across the street, is the site of a 1910 farmhouse-style house situated on two lots. In the springtime, the yard is full of old growth forsythia and hydrangea and a gorgeous star magnolia tree, and I love looking out at the yard and the house and daydreaming. Since I’ve lived here the condition of the house, owned by a very elderly couple and split into upstairs/downstairs apartment units, has gone steadily downhill as the couple’s health declined. And, about three or four months ago, the couple lost the house on the auction block and it was purchased by an investor.

A few weeks ago, a crew came and cut down a bunch of bushes and trees (weep) and stripped the siding off. Wow, I thought! Maybe I’m going to get to watch them redo this house and make it beautiful again. And while I can’t live in it right now, at least I can look at it, right? The idea of seeing the house restored to its glory and a happy family inhabiting it  warmed my heart.

Tom and Ella and I went out of town the day after Christmas for just one night. When we returned, the house was a heap of rubble. They tore it down!

Now, I know it was in really rough shape. I know the investors who bought it were likely not crazy people like me who would renovate such a ramshackle house. It was a totally practical, even expected step for them to take. And I was SO. SAD. that they did it.

Crews came back with bulldozers over the next few days to clear the lot. One day last week, I suddenly smelled the very strong odor of natural gas, so I shepherded my little family over to my mom’s house a few blocks away and called the gas company who came to investigate whether the smell was coming from the now vacant lot. I lamented to the gas man that I hated to see the house torn down, and that’s when he said, “Hey, sometimes progress begins with a bulldozer.”

I’ve been mulling over those words the past few days. I got to thinking about 2011 and how so many aspects of my life feel like they were not just changed by circumstances beyond my control, but bulldozed. My father died. My uncle, his brother and business partner, also passed away unexpectedly just before Christmas. The family business that supported my immediate family for 40+ years, and which is my sister’s only source of income, is being shuttered. My brothers have their fair share of troubles that I won’t publicly go into on my blog. My business partner and I had to make our own share of difficult decisions in our business; while we’re doing great, changes definitely happened in 2011 business-wise. 

2011 was difficult. There is no sugar-coating that. Just like finding that house in a pile of rubble, most of the changes were unanticipated, sudden, and tough to swallow. 

But then again, who knows what’s to come? What can be built now that the land is cleared and the ground is healing? I already know some big changes are afoot in 2012, some of them utterly wonderful. And even among the rubble there are always treasures, little unexpected blessings to discover.

I am blessed to be here. I am blessed to have those who love me by my side. And maybe, just maybe, since 2011 was in many ways about tearing down, 2012 can now be about building up.