I Almost Bought a House

If you scroll down to the beginning of my posts, and perhaps even read the name of this blog, you will most likely get the correct impression that I am trying to have a very portable life. Reduce possessions. So what the hell was I thinking? Looking at a lovely old adobe house for sale in Silver’s historic district? Falling in love with it’s potential? Calling my financial advisor and asking how much it would screw up my carefully planned financial future if I bought this thing. He listened patiently and said he would get back to me with numbers. I texted my daughter, whose insights and opinions often belie her tender age of 24. Of course, I called Melanie, and she reminded me that I had been here only one week. I called Denise, another of my soul sisters, and she listened patiently. And Carmon was with me when I did a walk through with the real estate agent, mercifully tactful and holding off giving any opinion.

I think I wanted to buy the house, because it’s what I know. I know how to do that. I’ve owned homes since 1984. When I got divorced after 20+ years of marriage, all I wanted to do was be married again. Because it was what I knew. I didn’t know how to navigate otherwise, because I had never been on my own before. Luckily, after my divorce, I dated a bunch of lovely commit-a-phobic men. And a bunch of totally unsuitable other men, but that’s another story.

I thought about a lot of things that evening and into the night. I thought about the fact that my brother inherited the family home after our dad passed away last year. My parents totally planned the right thing. My brother is very happy with the house. I would have been miserable, and even more so if we had to share the property and make joint decisions, etc. Here’s how happy my brother was: When I visited him there after the property cleared probate and papers were signed, he hopped up from the chair he was sitting in and stood in front of the TV where the Detroit Red Wings were kicking somebody’s ass. And he said to me, “I have only two rules in my house. The first rule is that I make all the rules. The second rule is that there is no changing the first rule.”  We both laughed hysterically. He is a damn funny guy. But that is one of the things about owning a property. There’s a huge limit on what people can tell you what you can do in your own home, like having cats and dogs. At least, that’s the illusion I hold onto.

And I thought about dolphins and whales. Really, I did. There’s a part of me that thinks dolphins and whales are more evolved that humans. They have relinquished all their material fixations, returned to the oceans, and travel with a spiritual enlightenment that we can only hope for in one of our next iterations.

And I thought about my other small attempt at a portable life, when I traveled cross-country in my Jeep. I tried to write about that then, but it didn’t work for me. I have my brother partially to blame (ha ha) for that. When I stopped in Michigan on my journey, he asked me one evening how my writing was going. I said it was going okay. He paused for a moment, then, in a deadpan voice said,

“Chapter One: Saw a hitchhiker. Kept driving.

Chapter Two: Saw a dead deer. Kept driving.”

Then he walked out of the room. I told you he was goddamn funny.

But what stopped me cold and made me drop the whole idea of home ownership was this: The thought of owning again, having responsibility for a house, killed my desire to write. In just a few short hours, my compulsion to write, the joy I felt about writing again was wiped out. Gone. And it terrified me. I could not let that happen.

I waited till a decent time the next morning to call the real estate agent, and told her not to put any more effort into getting some answers to questions I posed. I wasn’t going to buy the house. I called my financial advisor and left him a similar message. I texted my daughter(who never responded to my text from the day before) and told her my sanity had been restored. Her response: “Hah figured I’d let u sleep on it lol.” Which is a good summation of what everyone else responded back to me.

One last thing about home ownership and material possessions  - This brings great joy and comfort to many. It gives a wonderful sense of belonging and grounding and security. I see that in my brother and my friends. I am happy for them. It also means I have place to store the crap I haven’t released yet. (Thank you Melanie…) These days, it has a polar opposite effect on me. I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter. It works for me.

(I am including a picture here that I received recently from Carmon. I am probably breaking some copyright law, but I am including it anyway. I hope it makes you smile.)