Buy this house

Two or three weeks ago, our property manager contacted us to let us know that our renters would be moving out. Our renters? I thought. We still own that house?

 Indeed, we do. Being halfway across the world from the house that we still own in Powell sometimes makes it easy not to think about it. But the e-mail from our property manager was a reminder of something big that still ties us to the United States in a very tangible way.

And what kind of surprised me is my ambivalence toward the whole thing. Of course, I want to sell the house. It is a fairly significant financial drain on us, even with renters. If the house is left empty without renters, it will quickly cause serious problems for us. Our lives would be much easier if someone would buy the house.

But there is still a completely irrational part of me that doesn't want to let go. This is the first house that I have owned (and by "I have owned" I mean the bank owns it and allowed us to paint the walls whatever colors we wanted). It is probably the only house I will ever own. T and I worked hard to make that house our home in the three years that we lived there, and, like many homeowners, we had grand plans for the house's future. I had to let go of all of that when I moved out of the house.

I can't go back to it. This is not only for practical reasons, like those related to employment, but for emotional and psychological reasons. Most of the belongings that I associate with that house are no longer my belongings– in fact, for all I know, some of you who read my blog may be the new owners of some of my former belongings. The house that I sometimes think I want to go back to can no longer exist for me.

Somehow, the fact that it is spring also seems to be playing a role in my complex feelings. Maybe this is partly because it has always been in the spring that T and I made plans for the future. Whether it was trying to decide where to go for graduate school, whether to move to Powell, what to plant in the garden, or whether to move to Morocco– all of these decisions were made in the spring. And spring is when I really start to love my house. The grass starts turning green, the lilac bushes get big buds on them, the red-winged blackbirds chat with each other in the backyard, the robins hop merrily in my rock garden. Notice how I can't stop calling it "my" house? And I can't stop wondering… Are the tulips coming up yet? Is the cat coming out from hiding, suddenly friendlier as she always seems to get in the spring? Where will the robins build their nests this year? If I planted a garden, would that white tailed deer return and eat everything in it?

I suppose I'm just going through a normal stage of culture shock, still. Or maybe just a normal stage of…being human. But I will be totally okay when it's time to move on from this stage. And I think I will be okay when it's time to sell my house.