It’s been a long break, not that I really needed one, but since I didn’t keep my commitment of writing weekly, let’s say I did need it.
Finally, sweaters are on! Loving it!
On another note, my house is on the market. The lovely home where I thought I would retire with Husband while from my rocking chair, I would admire my beautiful daughter living a wonderful life, that home in on the market. Sigh.
Don’t get me wrong. Fortunately, bills are being paid and we are current. But, you know (well, maybe you don’t) that feeling of scarcity and poverty you have when you get an email from your bank telling you’ve got 49 dollars left in your checking account and you realize that there is still three days before payday? And then the next thing you know you're biting into your daughter’s college savings, those same savings you promised to never touch unless they were addressed to some fancy college 18 years from the day you opened that account in her name? Well, I hate that feeling. And we’re having to go through it more often than we ever thought we would. So, after painful deliberation, we made the decision to sell our home and downsize in order to enjoy life better with our not so terrible two incomes.
And let me tell you, for me it was really difficult, because I poured heart and soul into this house. In every decision we could make, I painstakingly researched and studied countless options, bought too many decorating magazines from where I tore out too many pages to show the builder because I loved the wall color, the backsplash, the tile, the fixture, the floor, the carpet, the wood finish, the granite, a specific appliance, the shelving (definitely), and a very long etc.
The result was worth it. I think. So this time around in order to let go I had to go through the same monologue as when we moved into our first home back in 1996. I already had the keys to the Riverside home. It too was brand new, though a spec home, so we had no say in the finish out. Oh, but how much pleasure it gave us with its arches, its ample spaces, though I recently found out it was just 1,978 square feet. This was before motherhood. So for two people it was more than plenty. It didn’t have a back yard, and to reach the tiny green patch in the back you had to walk practically the entire side of the house. So when our little girl arrived, I began thinking I wanted her to have a yard. So we moved to the Menard home where we lived for seven years before moving to this our Miami Dr home.
Oh, yeah, the monologue. In truthfulness, personally I did not think my husband and I would be homeowners. I don’t think that home ownership is something immigrants arrive with or plan for. But there we were, with keys to a brand new home. I was in sheer disbelief. One day, during my lunch break I drove to the still empty house to admire it quietly and alone from inside my car and to talk to God, telling him something like this, “I thank you for this house. I never thought I would be worthy or deserving of such a beautiful space, and yet here you have me. After all, I am just the simple daughter of peasants, and all I ever thought we could aspire to was a job to pay for the rent. Dear God, if some day you decide we shouldn’t be here, give me the strength and the humility to leave not in pain but in gratitude for the time you allowed me to live here. And to never forget that no matter how beautiful this house is, it ultimately is just a “thing,” and that I can be strong and brave enough to walk away from it, knowing in my heart that my home is where my loved ones are, and that I will leave it with no regrets, but with only gratitude to you.”
I said, more or less, the same thing when we moved into the Menard home and the Miami Dr home, all three times with tears in my eyes.
Now if a buyer would pop up! Or maybe just the Lotto…
