rustypants speaks

not gone yet, but what a couple days this has been!

the previous post talks about my whirlwind day on tuesday with the realtor and getting a contract on the house. what has ensued since then has been an edge-of-your-seat thriller involving the ability of the buyer to secure financing that satisfies her needs as well as the needs of the bank.

when i didn’t hear anything by the end of wednesday, i wasn’t worried but i was wondering if maybe our celebration was premature. by the end of the business day today, i was a bit worried.

then tonight, rakesh (our realtor) called and said the magic words: she got financing and the house inspection is this sunday morning at 9am!

my first reaction was not a pleasant one and i’m a bit surprised at myself.

our move to florida has been the best thing that could have happened to lise and i. as i’ve mentioned before, i believe that it literally and figuratively saved our lives. we’ve sacrificed a lot in the process, but in the end we’re happier than we’ve been in years and feel alive again. we’ve made decisions and changes regarding how we live and what we need / don’t need to get by – it’s only been a good thing! we miss our families and friends terribly but we’re in a better place to appreciate and love them where we are than where we were.

so my first reaction tonight was one of melancholy, fear, and sadness. i want to be happy about selling the house but wow – we’ve spent the last 16 months working towards selling it, and with so much frustration, loss, and disappointment – the reality of selling our house has finally hit.

we thought we were going to die in this house when we bought it. we thought we were going to host parties and dinners and get togethers here until we were little old folks. we loved coming home to all this space and room. we didn’t have to worry about whether the tv was too loud or the music too loud or whether we had clothes on (not that this one has ever stopped me…) we got to have our own rooms / offices to have our own space we had a huge basement and got couches and the tv and were going to have youth group over here every weekend and kids and we put our pictures up and had cookouts and played cards and friends came from out of town and stayed with us and there are things i’ll never forget about this place.

and i’m sad. sad for things lost. sad that things didn’t work out the way we had envisioned them. sad that the freedom and independence we felt with the house didn’t continue. i’m melancholy because of an ideal that we had built in our heads about what Having A House meant. I’m scared because of losing our last physical tie to cincinnati, having an “out” if we decided that moving to pensacola was a mistake, not being able to just cruise into town whenever we are able.

and then after i had a good little pity party and shed some tears over these things, i’m happy and relieved.

i’m happy because this is the end of the process we started so long ago. because we’ll no longer be losing huge sums of money to a place that sits empty. because this will allow us to build our savings back up and move on to this next phase of our lives begun last summer when we pulled up to the sandy shore and dug our toes in and let our hair down. relieved because i know that the house has been a stressful thing and causes me to cling and hold on to things that are no longer there. relieved because that ideal was not realistic in the long haul and in the face of an ever-changing thing we call life. i’m happy. i’m happy because lise and i can now focus completely on what we need to focus on: each other. i’m the luckiest guy on earth – my wife is the best!

sorry for the long post but it’s helped me process.