Expectations

Building a new life is very much like building a new house.
You know why you are moving to a new house. You know what was wrong with the old house - and what was right. You know what the new house MUST have to make the move worthwhile and you know where you can compromise.
Or do you?
Sometimes when I was building the new house I would fixate on details that I believed I just had to have.
I just had to have stone benchtops.
It was an agony when I couldn't have them.
It seems ridiculous that it mattered so much now because I love my house without them.
On the other hand there was the cement battle, the downlight battle and the paint colour battle. I put my will against theirs and the outcome was well worth it.
So now I am building a new life and there are things I want for me. But it is hard to know sometimes. Am I being unreasonable? Or in making a new life, should I insist on the things that I believe are priority items?
And what cost will I bear in pursuing them?

And as I sit in a house without my children it is almost impossible to count the cost- so why shouldn't I demand the very most out of this new life?