It all started about six weeks ago when our good friends told us the people across the street from them were looking to put their house on the market and were wondering if our friends knew anyone who would be interested. Mark and I have long had our sights on this neighborhood, loving its mature trees, established feel and proximity to the boys' school. We were cautiously excited, because honestly a house that is 30 to 40 years old could be anything from great to completely dated-looking.
The couple who was selling the home wasn't quite ready to show it yet, but knowing that we'd have a lot of work ahead of us before we could even think about putting our house on the market, we contacted a Realtor in hopes of getting a feel for what we could expect. She came to our house and was unsurprisingly effusive about our house and prospects of selling it. After all, isn't that their job? We've been in this house for eight years, and obviously the economy and housing market have both tanked since we bought this place. Fortunately, we were lucky to have purchased our home for a pretty reasonable price and would stand to make out OK if we were able to sell our house somewhere in the neighborhood of our asking price. I guess that's the best many sellers can hope for these days.
I've had house wanderlust from time to time for a couple years now. Oh, wouldn't it be nice if we could have more space, a bigger yard, live in that neighborhood? For the most part, though, we've been pretty content in this house and neighborhood. Though, we're not super-tight with most of our neighbors, we know everyone around us. The boys have friends across the street and down the road. It all lends a certain degree of comfort. Naturally, as soon as it looked as though we might move on from our abode, I started to feel very attached to it. This place is about as unremarkable as they come, but it's ours, the home we walked into returning from the hospital with babies Paul and Gus, the only home Ben has ever really known. Paul and Ben have heard us talking about the possibility of moving over the last couple weeks, and Paul emphatically says, "We're not moving!" Even though he'd be at the same school, that change is always hard for kids.
All of my nostalgia doesn't even take into consideration the logistics and headaches of selling a home. The last time we did it, Mark and I were both working full-time, and Ben was in child care. In a lot of ways, that made it much easier. Now with Gus and me at home, those showings and open houses undoubtedly would get a lot more complicated. And let's just say our house in its current state is not viewing-ready. Getting it to that point would require us to move mountains of clutter.
Then there's the stress of worrying about whether the house will sell, the agony of falling in love with another place only to have it snatched out from beneath you. The first day the Realtor walked through our house, she was very nice but said things like, "Now Jess, I know what it's like to have kids in the house, but if I were you I'd bleach the heck out of this tub." (I wash my tub every week, and darn if I can ever get it looking perfectly white!) I imagined what it would feel like to have all kinds of people walking through our home and sniping about what they dislike in this place we've created. All of this combined to make whole idea begin to look mighty unappealing. Plus, all of this was based on a house we had yet to set foot inside.
Finally, though, after weeks of waiting, the couple was ready to have us see the house. Mark and I had gone through a different house in the neighborhood two days before. The inside of it was staggeringly awful - wallpaper covering every wall, the decor unbelievably dated. It was like stepping into a time warp. Suddenly, I was very pessimistic about the place we were about to see. As we walked into the house, though, our fears evaporated. The house is lovely, immaculately maintained, with lots of renovations. The lot is full of trees and has a beautiful, shady backyard. It's not perfect, and it's not a whole lot bigger than what we have now, but it's the neighborhood we've always wanted. The kids could walk to school, our friends would would live across the street. In our house now, a busy street separates the boys from many of their friends. In this neighborhood, they could safely ride their bikes to many friends' houses.
Mark and I were really excited. I began to picture us making the house exactly what we wanted it to be. But me being me, I began to have worries and doubts. I was again feeling sad about the thought of leaving this house. On the other hand, though, I would be sad to see someone else get the other house as well. There's just no way this will be an easy decision.
As we wade through trying to make a choice, I'm trying to keep it all in perspective. After all, it's not so much about the house; it's more about us as a family: me and Mark and the boys. It makes me think of this song I love, "Home," by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. "Ahh, home. Let me come home. Home is wherever I'm with you." So it is.
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