Sunday, July 08, 2007

It's been a While

Time sure flies when there is a mountain of things that need to be accomplished by a deadline.



For two weeks we worked like fiends to get this house ready for sale. Not country ready. City ready. That is one thing I learned to do well from having to sell homes in over-crowded cities. Not fun at all. Strangers tromping through your home; actually it's not a home anymore once it's listed for sale: it's only a house that you occupy until you are free of it to move on. That's what this house feels like to me now. Empty. Not literally. Far from it. But majority of personal touches are down and packed away. The family portraits and photos are off the walls. The house echos now with our voices, the bare walls everyday reminders that we are just marking time now, in this place that we once thought of as home.



It feels like we've stopped living, afraid to get anything out of place, lest it create more last minute cleaning before a showing. It's sad and depressing. And tiring. I feel completely spent. Exhausted. I cannot even imagine what the kids must be feeling. "Don't do..." and "...stop it; you're making a mess..." were not in our vocabularies in the run of a normal day. Probably because my mother was such a neat freak while I was growing up, I made a conscious decision that my kids would have more freedom in that department, for the good and bad of it.



I feel empty. I don't like feeling empty.



Before I go, I must tell you that we had a showing yesterday. (We're not even up on the MLS.ca yet; this was word of mouth.) It was a perfect day for it, all sunny and warm and lovely, especially for checking out "The View" from the highest area of the property. That's all this man was interested in, "... no offence to your house, I am sure it's nice...". Seriously. He spent more than a quarter of an hour looking at the view, considering suitability for building a house with "the view", because that's what his wife wanted, but couldn't be bothered to join him. And my one thought? Why did I just spend all that time cleaning (for he never set one foot into the house) when I could have been spending that precious time with my kids???

3 comments:

Mary Anne said...

Barbara,
yes, selling a house is very difficult emotionally and physically. I hope you find a buyer very soon and can move on to your new life.

Ali P said...

Wish I could help out...maybe we would knit your stress away. August is coming as is my vacation week at Rissers. Hang on baby, I's a comin'!!!

Courtney said...

How funny! We're trying to sell our house too, and keeping it clean with a 4 month old in tow is a serious pain! As for the guy commenting on the view, I actually had a guy say that he could tell I was a good Christian because of my housekeeping!! I said thanks, but the whole time I just wondered what the heck that means.

Good Luck!