The pursuit of happiness

Trying to sell our house may well be one of the most uncomfortable situations we’ve ever chosen to put ourselves through. We just never expected it to be this hard with the way this market has been and with the amount of work we’ve done to update this home. We are not naive to real estate – Ronnie used to be a real estate agent and we’ve seen every episode of every buying and selling and flipping show ever on HGTV. We listed with an experienced and successful agent late last Summer and through the Fall, with very little traffic and only a few that showed interest but ended up choosing something else. Our entire neighborhood was slow during that time (I follow everything on the market over here with email alerts), but when we saw houses selling in a matter of days in February, we decided to list ourselves and take advantage of the hot streak. But that was mid-March and here we are, almost May, with no offers. We get little bites now and then, but the people most interested usually aren’t ready to buy or would rather be on the other side of the State Line. It’s somewhat baffling when we see what sells quickly and often at higher price points than ours. We’re beginning to wonder if there’s a curse, or maybe we are just blind.

The toughest part is the feeling of temporary living. We packed up a ton of stuff to de-clutter (which, makes me breathe easier too so maybe that stuff will just stay in storage!), but due to needing to be ready for showings, we never feel like we can just relax. On evenings that we don’t pick up after ourselves, it feels really stressful, like what if someone calls and wants to come see the house tomorrow morning? It’s always a thought in the back of my mind when I’m in a hurry, multitasking and not doing household chores, but sometimes you don’t want to live like a model home. You want to actually LIVE and not just clean! There are things that we don’t do now purely because it’s not worth the mess, and I don’t like not having that freedom to just be us in our own home. Not for this long!

And it’s such a vulnerable, personal thing to have people constantly coming into your home and basically judging you. If they don’t like something, or don’t love the house enough to make an offer, I take every one of those rejections personally. I try not to, and I know I shouldn’t, but this is our home, a place we’ve worked hard to make nice, so any negative feedback just feels like an insult. Homes are so personal! But that thinking has also lead me down another path – I’ve learned that I don’t want to be defined by my material belongings. This whole home selling thing and trying to figure out what we want in our next home and the things we truly value in this life has got me really anti-materialism. I know that our family and our quality of life is so much more than the size of our home and the finishes in it. That’s up to us to define and no one else. You don’t like our lack of landscaping and far from pristine lawn? Well, let me tell you about the fun things we did and the memories we made playing in the yard with the girls or sitting on the patio enjoying cocktails together instead of doing yard work. You don’t find the musky scent of two giant dogs refreshing? Well let me tell you about all the puppy snuggles on the couch and lazy Sunday naps we’ve shared with our beloved furry family members. There’s so much more to life than this house, our cars, our clothes, our bank accounts.

When this house finally sells, we are dreaming of a simpler life. One that might be on the outskirts of town with some acreage to hike and hunt on. Or maybe it’s a small lake community. Whatever it is, we want our next home to be an escape to nature and away from the stress of modern life. While we aren’t going all hipster-tiny-house-family, we do want something small and functional, but at this point we aren’t picky. Something we can pay off soon that isn’t a financial burden. We are focusing on the life we want to create for us and our girls. Simpler, more natural, more intentional. Fresh air and time and space to breathe.

In the meantime, until this house sells, I just tell myself that our future home isn’t ready for us yet, and the perfect future homeowner of this place isn’t ready yet either. There’s a plan, that’s on different timing than I prefer, but in the end, it will be the perfect timing. So we live one day at a time, learning lessons to stay in the present and not get too carried away with the future. Isn’t that how we should be living every day, no matter our circumstances? Isn’t being truly present and having gratitude in the current moment where we find real joy? Dear God, I’m listening.