Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

We are supposed to move into this house tomorrow. Yeah, I'm not seeing it happening, either.

The plan was that we would take 2 - 3 weeks to knock out a few walls, re-do floors, paint and carpet the girls' rooms. It only took 3 weeks to completely re-do our last kitchen... but that's just one room in a house.

In light of our recent loss, our contractors (good friends of Max's) have been so good to us, putting a lot of guys on the job and really pushing to get the house done by this weekend. But what I'm learning lately is that sometimes you just have no control. And that applies to both remodeling jobs and life in general.

When I walked through the house today, a little part of me wanted to throw a hissy fit and stomp my feet and cry and demand that they work all night long to get it done... but it may only be a week before everything is finished, so it's not worth looking like a crazed homeowner. It's just a week. In the scheme of things, it's nothing. We are just so anxious to get on with the next part of our life, but life has its own plan for us.

And so we sit. And wait. And wish.

Scenes From a Yard Sale

Now, I love bargains and yard sales as much as the next person, but if you're stupid, it's gonna cost ya.

As I may have mentioned, we're moving soon... this week, in fact. Since we've lived here for 12 years and my husband grew up here, we had a lot of stuff to get rid of. One thing about being in the storage biz is that you know what happens to all the "stuff" that people accumulate over their lives: it grows out of your house and into a storage unit that you pay for, for years and decades, until you finally die and your kids have to go through it and sell it. And, to boot, you never enjoyed it because you couldn't even see it while it was packed away in storage.

We are not hoarders or pack rats; my neighbors have told me that they look forward to our semi-annual dumpster days, when we have a garbage bin deposited by the curb while we purge the garage and house. I do keep sentimental mementos (kids' artwork and cards, photos, yearbooks, my old Duran Duran and U2 LPs, that sort of thing) but most of the "stuff" (antique furniture, dishes, knick-knacks) is meaningless to me. I'd rather sell it to someone who needs/wants/will buy it than keep it in my house. I've even started to classify some items as "aspirational purchases": those things I buy in the hopes that I'll take up a new hobby and become a master of it, like my soldering iron or scrapbooking supplies or breadmachine. They become reminders of failed attempts and I have no more need for them.

And thus, we had a garage sale. Everything on the driveway and in the garage was for sale. Piano, couches, filing cabinets, mugs, fabrics, clothing, old surfboard and wetsuit, Christmas junk, Hanukkah lights, children's Haggaddah for Passover, miscellaneous crap... it was all for sale. You could make us any offer and we would entertain it.

Unless you were a clumsy negotiator.

I've lived in Italy and that's where I learned to barter. As a shopper, you tend to know what something's worth to you and whether or not you'd buy it at the listed price - if so, you'd offer the seller about half the price and see what he/she would negotiate back. And then the seesaw began until a good price was agreed upon. I did this with some vintage Chinese pieces in Chinatown, too, and the old man who ran the warehouse smiled as he pretended to stick a knife in his heart. "Oh, you killing me! You killing me!" he howled. But I got my chests for a steal... and he even loaded them into my SUV for me.

Back to the yard sale. Knowing how the art of the deal happens, I was surprised by how some people have no game when it comes to bartering. I had a pair of gently used Calvin Klein slingback heels - I bought them new at their retail price of close to $100 and they are gorgeous - and I was offering them for $10. One woman wedged her meaty foot into them and offered me $5. I said $7 firm and she waddled away. Now, if she had expressed any interest in the shoes, I would have wheeled and dealed - and may have landed at $5 eventually. But she didn't really care about the shoes. So, like the Seinfeld "soup Nazi," I was like, "No shoes for you!"

Similarly, a man picked up a French textbook that we bought last May for about $80 - it's in rough condition but has its 2 CDs still intact. He had some sort of a scanner for books - it's clear that he buys and sells books, raping yard sale sellers in the process - and he showed me that the book was "only" worth $16 on Amazon. I had had it listed for $10, so I shrugged. "What do you want to pay for it?" I asked. "$1.50," he said, and to my amazement started to list all the costs involved for him if he buys the book - listing it, shipping it, blah blah. As if I don't know that the buyer on Amazon actually pays for shipping. Dipshit. I took the book out of his hand and put it in my house, then crossed my arms and waited for him to leave. (I later listed it on Amazon for $14 and the buyer will pay the shipping. Dipshit.)

One woman tried to tell me that my 9-year-old had told her something was "2 for a dollar." Are you kidding me? My kid has no idea that that even exists! I finally got her stuff totalled up -- $13.50 -- and she tried to hand me a hundred dollar bill. I said I wouldn't change it for her, so she asked me to hold her stuff on the porch. After an hour or two, my husband put it back out and we sold most of it. When she came back, she said, "But I promised I'd be back!" Like the $14 of crap would have made her life better. I said, "I don't even know you, why would your promise mean anything to me?"

"Because I'm human," she said, picking up an old Boggle game. Turning it up and down, she said, "Oh, I use these for therapy." (Huh?)

Good thing. Seems like she could use it.

Out with the Old

I am ready to be like the Buddha. I'm done with all the vitriol of this house sale and my own participation in it (even if I'm not able to truly say what I want to the people buying our house, I have been thinking it and have been using language that is not graceful or generous in intention... to say the least).

Now that I can see the possibility of an end to this process, I am ready to put my defenses down so that I can fully immerse myself in the excitement of our new home. The fearful, vicious-talking person who has taken over my body, guarding my emotions and protecting our family from any harm needs to recede again. It's been years since she's showed up and now I'll be happy to see her go back to the shadowy cave where she hibernates.

Let the new owners of our house find out for themselves that the magic of a house must be placed there. I feel sorry for them, but I cannot worry about them and any future strife that they might try to create.

I'm not guaranteeing that I'll be able to hold my tongue when I talk to my girlfriends about this, but I promise to try to reframe the experience as a positive one when I am finally sitting in my new home.

Breathe. Breathe.

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

I love this house. I do.

See how it seems to be looking at you? Like the dormer windows are checking you out and the chimney is a raised eyebrow and the white railing of the porch is like a crooked smile? Yeah, I see it, too.

My husband grew up here and we were married here - I'm sure I'm boring you because I've probably told you this story a zillion times already - and now we're selling it. It's a good decision, and it will allow us to move to an area that we are enchanted with. It doesn't make it any easier.

I had a fantasy that we'd sell it to a family, one that is as quirky as ours, that could appreciate the charm of a 60-year-old house, the suburban street, the kids playing on the lawn in the summer sunsets, the adorable novelty of actually running across the street to borrow a cup of sugar from Dick and Vega (my beloved neighbors). I dreamed that they would quickly become fixtures at the annual persimmon party and stroll their kids around the block the way that we did. Their kids (the ones in this dream family) would learn to ride 2-wheeler bikes on the street in front of the house like mine did and swing for hours on the sturdy steel swingset with friends. And their summers would be filled with pool parties and BBQs, just like ours.

Okay, so you know where this is going. Our buyers do not have kids. They are not from the Valley. They don't give a sh*& that we have a history in this house. They asked for a credit because we share a zip code with another city that is "less desirable" than the one on our address (no, really). They asked that we not be present during the inspection because they did not want our "song and dance" (this is what my husband told me - and I have a feeling he was being kind in his paraphrasing to spare my feelings). The entire process has been excruciating and I can't help but feel like I am giving this house away to wolves.

Is that my lesson? Are they just pushing us away in a most disgusting, rude manner so that we can turn away and not look back? Or is it really just a "thing," this house I love, and merely a temporary container for the love that we've incubated here?

The Superhero in My Backseat

So, we're moving. We're in escrow on two properties (selling one, buying one) and I've spent a few days vacillating between happiness and sadness, stuck in a bittersweet purgatory before we actually pack up and move. My husband grew up in this house, we got married here, two generations of babies in his family (him and his three siblings, and then our three kids) have been raised here. Countless Thanksgiving dinners, Passovers, Christmas lights, Halloween fun, birthday parties... it's all been here. I'm used to the constant back-and-forth motion of our girls running across the street to see their best friends, and then the entire 5-girl parade running back here to set up a lemonade stand or shoot a movie in the garage.

Yesterday, signing the papers to sell our house, I got really, really sad. My eyes were red-ringed as I drove my older daughter and youngest daughter to a Passover seder at my friend Ivy's house.

"I'm sad, and I'm happy," my oldest said, sitting demurely in the passenger seat in a very French outfit. It was like a happy/sweet foreign film, this small woman-child in nautical stripes, white scarf and bowler hat trying hard to smile with her freckles, mouth turning down ever so slightly.

"Are you sad, Mama?" my youngest asked from the backseat.

"Yeah, I am," I said. It occurred to me that I hadn't asked her about her feelings about moving in a few days -- I wondered if it had hit her yet, the idea of not being as close to her BFFs and kindergarten home base. "Are you?"

Like the crack of a firework, she shot back, "No! I'm excited!" Kind of like, "Is there anything else to be?"

I had to remind myself that change is important. For every fear-induced sad feeling, there are ten more excited ones. Nervous stomachs can mean excitement and firecrackers, too.

Thank you, Super Girl.

A New Slice of Heaven

If everything goes well, this will be my new front view. No longer will I see the crazy white-haired dude in the kimono putting his trash on the street or watch a couple of clandestine lovers use the sidewalk just outside my fence as their rendezvous spot, his Mercedes parked behind her Escalade while they sit on my curb and smoke cigarettes, speaking in a foreign tongue.

If all goes as I think I want it to, my neighbors will be "neigh"-bors... horses. Not that I'm a horsey girl, but I love being around them. And, if I want one, I could maybe put in a stable. The house is zoned for horses; not that I would buy one, but I could. And I like that, too.

There are perks to the area: good schools, clean air, close to Malibu, small-town feeling in our neck of the woods. But the main perk is something I just can't pin down. I just like it out there. I do. Don't know why.

So if all goes smoothly, I will no longer be a Valley mom, the label I have worn with pride for years. I may have to reinvent myself. And I kinda like that too.