My office space from the last house. I miss the light from its window.
As you know, we recently moved to a rental townhouse after closing the sale of our home of 9-ish years last month. The situation isn’t exactly what we wanted – without a permanent residence and more than likely moving twice in a short period of time, etc. – but since the ball started rolling, rolling we went. I’ve shared parts of our house story over the years but here’s a quick, condensed version:
MJ and I bought our ‘starter house’ at what was then the top of the market back in 2006. The plan was to own it for a few years, gain equity and then sell it for a profit and move on to our forever home. Of course, we didn’t know the market was inflated and would crash immediately after our purchase. We are forever grateful we purchased something we could comfortably afford but getting out and moving on has been frustrating, lengthy and heartbreaking.
Finally, at the start of 2014, we could financially afford to get out so we started looking at houses. All of last year we looked. We didn’t list our house right away because I was afraid it would sell before we had somewhere to live. Since I work from home and (now) have three children, I didn’t want to be homeless. However, it seems we were destined for that no matter what.
Then, last fall, we found a house we could really see our little family in. We put our house on the market immediately and put in an offer. The offer was conditionally accepted, the condition being that our house sold. That didn’t happen and we lost the house we wanted. This all happened right around the time of my awesome emergency appendectomy. :)
It was disheartening but we consoled ourselves with believing it wasn’t meant to be and everything would work out in the end. We pulled our house off the market during the holiday season but when the new year arrived, we decided to list it again, not really expecting much. So imagine our shock when it sold in five days. We sweated and worried through the inspection and appraisal but everything passed and the official closing was at the end of March.
And now we are here, kind of blowing in the wind. We have this rental, a six-month lease, outside the bounds of our school district but close to the beach we frequent during the summer months and we’ve filed all the appropriate paperwork for everything under the sun. So.Much.Paperwork. We are still house hunting however being stuck in a home far longer than we planned has made us very picky apprehensive about buying another one. But what’s next? Will we be here only six months? Longer? Will the right house come on the market for us? All I can say is, I don’t know. And the I-don’t-knows might just break my brain.
I get asked if I miss our old house. After being in this rental for about a month now, I can say that I don’t miss the house itself. It was only the outer shell that housed the most important things in my life and I got to bring them all with me when we moved. I do miss the familiarity we had there. Everyone knew where to find things and we understood how the space worked. We are still getting into a rhythm here and in the near future, we’ll be learning a new one.
I do miss the feeling that the house and the space were ours. MJ and I changed a lot about the house in our time there from flooring to paint to window dressing to hanging pieces on the wall. We made it our own. I don’t feel that here and don’t expect to. I do look forward to making a new space for us, in fact, I’m really itching for it.
Some kinds of change are fun and inspiring, others hard and uncomfortable. This move and the unknown aspects of what is coming is uncomfortable but it’s also refreshing. It’s a learning experience and an adventure. We’ll get to where we are supposed to be soon enough.
