The End and the Beginning of the Limbo

Nope. I didn't see this one coming. Not at all.

To catch you up, quickly, Hubby and I are trying to sell our house. In efforts to sell it faster, we decided to move out of it. We've been living in his parents' basement ever since (for the last two months). I'd had to pull my kids out of preschool and soccer and ballet and all that "important" stuff, and we've been really living a half-life here, in utter limbo, in a dark, crowded, small basement. We're terribly grateful to my in-laws for being so gracious and generous with us, but we've also been extremely eager to move on with life. We've had no success whatsoever in either the home-selling arena, nor the home-buying arena.

Good. Now you're up to speed.

My parents are moving to Spain for a couple of years. They need someone to take care of their house while they’re gone.

We had taken ourselves out of the running for house-sitting, because we were building a house. And, on top of that, we already owned a house. We really didn’t need to borrow anyone else’s house.

But, if you’ve been reading this blog at all, you’ll remember that we actually decided against the house we’d been building, for no reason other than that our gut unmistakably insisted that we walk away. And we’ve had a devil of a time selling our old house. We live in a collapsing market and our old neighborhood is full of beautiful homes for sale, not one of which is actually selling.

You can see where I’m going with this.

The matter of who would house-sit for my parents was resolved a while back, but my father reconsidered the situation and decided against the renter that he’d settled on. And today he called me. He’s in a pickle, needing someone to live in his house. I’m in a pickle, needing somewhere to live. After various frantic phone calls to Hubby at work and to my dad and to various realtors, the matter was decided.

We're moving into my childhood home.

And we feel good about it.

And that's all we've asked for all along--that when we finally make a decision, we can feel good about it.

This gives us time to sell our house the way we want to sell it, and not, out of desperation, entertain stupid offers from stupid people. When we do actually sell the house, we can then put our money in the bank somewhere and watch it grow as the market collapses, thus allowing us to buy an even more fabulous house than the ones we’d been shopping for. And we will be saving plenty of money, seeing as how we wouldn’t be paying any kind of rent or mortgage (my parents bought the house with cash. They’ve never owed anything on it and they certainly aren’t trying to make money off of us).

It also gives us a destination. I’ve been living in limbo, not knowing where to sign my son up for preschool or where to enroll my daughter for kindergarten.

Hubby is sold on every level. This is so exciting to him. So many things about this arrangement are so perfect, but I have a couple of concerns, large and small. The little concerns are about, for instance, my beautiful black grand piano. There’s no room in my parents’ house for my piano. I’m trying to find a sibling or someone else that I trust who might be interested in babysitting it. It’s quite possibly the only nice thing that I own and I treasure it.

Other concerns include Hubby’s commute. My parents’ house is half an hour away from where we are now, in the wrong direction. That tacks on significant time to his commute. He’s not the least bit concerned about this, so I guess I shouldn’t be either.

It’s also strange, the thought of going back to that neighborhood where I was a dumb kid. Back to that house, this time as Matron, not Child. My daughter will sleep in the bed where I slept as a girl, and my sons in my brothers’ rooms. It all feels a little weird, but no bad per say.

The bigger concerns, for me, are matters of pride. It’s silly, I know. My brain tells me not to worry about such things, but something inside still does. I’m a grown woman with a family of my own. My husband is very successful in his career. Outside of our mortgage we have absolutely no debt whatsoever. But we’re about to move into my parents’ house. It seems like such a maneuver is reserved for the kid who can’t quite get on his own feet—the kid who’s about to file for bankruptcy if Mommy and Daddy don’t jump in to the rescue.

But I’m NOT that kid! And my pride worries that someone might think that I AM that kid! Will the neighbors snicker? Will “friends” hear only snippets of the story and jump to conclusions about me or my Hubby? It’s one thing when people speak to you in person and you can rectify incorrect ideas. But you can’t correct the secret whisperings going on behind your back.

And no, I have no idea why I care. So don’t bother telling me how stupid that concern is, because I already know how stupid it is!

All in all, I’m pleased. I’m grateful for the way things worked out. My parents’ house is lovely and they have all the amenities we could ask for. It gives us plenty of time to decide what exactly it is that we want in the long run. It’s a form of limbo itself, but it also solves my current limbo. It allows me to move on with my life, while still giving me time to determine my future.