Since I wrote a couple of posts last week about the never-ending saga of selling and buying a house, I feel like it might be fun to provide an update on the goings-on of the last couple weeks, as we close in on the closing dates for both of the houses - the one we are selling, plus the one we are buying. The really fun part about closing is that, even with seemingly all the i’s and t’s dotted, you never know until right up until the papers are signed whether the closing is actually going to happen.
The crazy thing is, we’ve been working on this since last June. Our plan was to stay in our current house for five years (we knew as soon as we moved in that it wasn’t really a good fit for us). We hit the five-year-mark last February, and our goal was to start the process of “moving” as soon as school got out in June. In June. We have been working on this since freaking June of last year. That’s a long time. We packed, and we painted, and we cleaned, and did all of the things we could do (within our power and very limited budget) to get the house ready to go on the market. My original goal? To have the whole thing done and over with before school started again. Needless to say, I missed my goal. By several months. A lot of months.
When we finally put the house on the market in September, I expected it to sell really fast. Instead, as soon as we put the house up for sale, the market ground to a stuttering halt. Was it the election? Was it just the time of year? Was mercury in the microwave? Who the hell knows. But we spent months with the house just sitting there. We would have showings here and there, always with the same feedback. Lovely home, showed great, not what the buyer was looking for. Or they weren’t ready to buy yet (Then why did I just spend two hours cleaning the damn place?) We had one person say that my house smelled bad, and I’m still real salty about that one, because I know my house does not smell bad. But from then on, before every showing, the rugs, carpets, and couch got dusted with essential oil infused baking soda and vacuumed. We had people schedule showings and cancel, sometimes fifteen minutes before their scheduled showing. I had one group show up fifteen minutes early, and tell me not to bother going anywhere, because they had decided the driveway was too steep and didn’t want to look at the house. Or, my personal favorite, was when I was on my way to an appointment, and my son called me, freaking out. We had a showing scheduled for noon, and I had threatened him within an inch of his life - be out of the house by noon, or all hell shall rain down upon his head. He called me at eleven am, freaking out. He was in his room in the basement, and there were people just walking around upstairs. Apparently the people looking at the house had been early, and instead of waiting for confirmation from our realtor that it was ok to enter our home before the scheduled time, took it upon themselves to just…let themselves in. I later learned this is a really big no-no in the land of realty, but also, it seems like a good way to get shot. One ought not enter someone’s home unannounced, at a time that has not been mutually agreed-upon by all parties. Fortunately, my son was able to just throw all this stuff under his bed and leave, and we’re unlikely to shoot people on sight for being in our house in the middle of the day - but they had no way of knowing that.
All this is to say, it’s really hard to sell a house while living in it. We have, however, gotten really good at making the place spic and span with a quickness. It does suck, though when we have showings and it’s just me at home alone, and not only do I have to get the house ready by myself, but then I have to take Fozzie (the dog) and wander the neighborhood like a vagrant until the people are finished looking at my house. You know, because I don’t have a car. Still.
After the first of the year, for whatever reason, the house-selling market picked right up, and we started having showings almost daily, and pretty soon had an offer on our bouse, and found a house that we love, and with any luck will close on both next week, and will be fully ensconced in our new home by the end of next week. But we have been living essentially in this sort of liminal space for months now, where our house hasn’t really felt like our own (partly because half of our stuff has been stored away in the POD), and just partly because we’ve been waiting for the next portion of our lives to begin.
For those of us who struggle with attention deficit disorder, at the best of times, we know how difficult it is to make daily things happen when there’s someting looming over our heads. I tend to go fully into severe executive dysfunction. It’s almost like I don’t really know what to do with myself, and if I take my focus off the things that my brain thinks “need” my attention (like selling the house), then it’s not going to happen. I tend to do this with a lot of stressful events. Especially things I have zero control over. I can’t control it, or do anything about it, but I have to keep my focus on it at all times, or it will somehow get away from me. Like it’s not already away from me. One might say, I’m not good at compartmentalizing. At all. This results in me being pretty ineffective at pretty much anything else I try to do.
This has resulted in things like confusing dates and times, frequently. For example, convincing myself that Tuesday is the 16th, while also being fully aware that Thursday is the 19th. I’m still not sure what I thought was going to happen to the 18th on that particular month. Or the time I had a doctor’s appointment, and I knew I needed to leave at 9:10am, but somehow convinced myself that 9:20 was the same as 9:10. And was shocked and alarmed when, five minutes after leaving the house, I had five minutes to make it to my appointment that was at 9:30. These are, sadly, just two examples of a whole plethora of events proving that I don’t have the slightest idea how time works, and it has only gotten worse over the last few months. Usually I can laugh at this sort of thing, but that missed appointment cost me seventy-five dollars, so it wasn’t very funny in the end.
With any luck, this (entirely too long) period of our lives will be coming to an end very soon. We will be able to live in our usual disarray once again, our things will be liberated from what has become known as “the goddamn POD”, and I will once again know what day it is. Possibly not that one. All of our fingers are crossed.
Oh, and according to the car repair shop, my new engine is scheduled to arrive on Monday. I told them I will believe it when I see it.