Unburdening

We did it! Eric and I signed papers to sell or rent the house. I could not bear to meet with the real estate agent, so I left my signature on line after line and Eric met with her and discussed numbers. I have to accept that the house is worth far less than I imagined and will sell for hundreds of thousands less than if we had sold it two years ago. The market is horrible and sinking further. Unfortunately, I do not trust our agent. I suppose she would like to sell the house and make a profit, so in that her interests mirror our interests. I wonder if most people like and trust their real estate agents. Of course, since I do not want to lose my house, I may not like anyone who facilitates the sale. My husband is so eager to sell, I am not sure he cares about anything but removing the burden of the mortgage from our lives. I wonder why I am attached to the house. I did not like it much at first, but then again I did not like Baltimore either and I did not want to move. Eric and his parents selected the house and made the renovations and I had no input in anything except that I refused to wallpaper the walls in the foyer. I did not want yellow walls, since most of the house had yellow walls, and so I chose a colour that I thought was white and was called 'linen'. I was appalled when I came home one day to find the foyer walls a light yellow too. I anticipated the day that I would choose the colours all through the house. I decided on a stark white for the guest bathroom, and loved that room more than any other for years and years; it was the only room that I felt I participated in; except that I kept the old bathtub and cracked tile floors.

Over the years the house has become mine, and I am entirely responsible for the clutter everywhere, which has been shocking and embarrassing me for months now. I am responsible for buying stuff and more stuff to fill every room in the house. I like lots of thick white towels and pillows and sets of sheets. I believe I have some sort of thing for white linens. I have huge bags full of sheet sets for every bed in the house. I have several comforters and duvets, and I cannot remember why I felt the need for so many. I clearly have bibliophilia, and books are piled up in every room on every surface. And paper collects and collects and follows me all through the house.

The house looks less and less personal. Our 'stager' advised us to remove almost everything, which we have not quite done. I like the sparseness now and wonder why we did not do this a long time ago.

Eric and I discussed moving to a smaller for some years. With three humans and one dog rather than a family of four with two huge dogs, a smaller place makes sense,, and I look forward to living downtown rather than close to suburbia, so I do not understand my attachment to the house and why I am panicking about this.

Why can't I discuss this without emotion? Eric prints out a spreadsheet with financial details and logic dictates unburdening ourselves of his house. I realize that all the decisions in my life have been based on emotions and not practicalities; logic has never been involved with ANY choices I have made. Perhaps that has been the luxury in my life, that I have not been forced to make the hard choices and lose. That each step in my life has been intuitive, spontaneous, unrehearsed, instinctual, free. Until now.