Goodbye, old friend
When Krista and I got married way back in November of ’99, we lived with her father in the house we currently occupy. Without going into details you won’t care to read about, an intimate moment was interrupted, and the next day we were looking for a new place to live in. Several hunting trips later we settled on a cute apartment near plenty of shopping and main roads. Both of us had lived in apartments before, so we knew what to expect – neighbors that didn’t love loud music as much as we did, limited space, constant parking problems, etc. The apartment was okay for what it was, but after adopting a few pets and expanding our possessions we decided to take the plunge and get a house.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t prepared for the amount of work a house took. In an apartment, if the water heater broke, that wasn’t my problem to fix. Same for the dishwasher. Same for the air conditioning. If it was part of the apartment complex, it wasn’t my problem and fixing it didn’t cost me a dime. In a house, though, EVERYTHING is your problem, your expense. When our water heater went out and flooded our garage, we had to deal with it. When shingles were blown off the roof, we had to hire and pay people to fix it. And then you have yards that need mowing, fences that need replacing, on and on and on. And since this was our first house, everything was new to us. Add to that the fact that I have a black thumb and no handyman skills, and you see how bad I was (and still am) at being a homeowner.
It is now a bit over nine years later, and that first house has been sold to a new family. Barring a zombie apocalypse, we’ll finalize the sale at the end of this month. And you wanna know what’s weird? I’m actually going to miss it. We had to do a lot of work to it over the years, but I knew that house. I understood its creeks, its groans. I knew which faucets had to be babied, which outlets were loose. The small kitchen was a pain, but I’d cooked in it for so long that I knew where to put platters, where to cut meat, where to sit my stirring bowls. I knew exactly how long it would take for the shower water to warm up. The landscaping was also done, with our rose bushes blooming annually like crazy. The house wasn’t perfect, but it was ours, and it was part of me. I’ll miss that.
That isn’t to say I’d go back to it, though. The new house (or, old old house, if you want to look at it that way) is bigger, the yards are much more expansive, we have room to grow, and since we don’t owe a mortgage on it we can actually start saving money. And, after all the work we’ve done, this place is getting pretty swanky. There are too many pluses to let the negatives make me want to go back. That doesn’t mean I can’t go by and visit it every once in awhile, though. Give it a drive-by, make sure the roses are being tended properly.
Anyway, goodbye, first house. I hope they treat you well.
This is one of those happy sad moments that should be treasured. Congratulations and condolences to you.