Moving With Michelle, Part I

This episode is all about acceptance and taking the next indicated step, leading me out of denial and procrastination and into action that leads to more action, becoming ALMOST fun.

Several years ago, while healing from surgery myself, I realized I had not been sympathetic enough to my friends and relatives who’d been down that road. It’s not that I didn’t understand it was a big deal. I just hadn’t had the experience. Now, five years into the thrill of victory and agony of defeat that is helping other people buy and sell their homes, I am getting my own home ready to list and, along with my husband Jim, looking for the next right place. As with the jolt of new awareness that came with surgery, I am reviewing some of the delicate operations conducted with past clients and thinking, I should have brought more comfort food…or tissues…or maybe suggested more naps. I just hadn’t had the experience before. Not really.

When we bought this house, we were moving to Madison from California. I’d always rented and Jim pretty much handled the purchase transaction. My part was to look at houses and say what I did and didn’t like and it was all very exciting and sort of surreal. Now, almost seventeen years later, it’s no longer practical for us to have a house and yard this size. We need one level, low maintenance living and a garage.

Here’s what my process has been so far:

  • Approximately 1 year of tears at the mere mention of leaving the home and neighbors I love (Make that approximately 3 years. I went to post this and was coincidentally reacquainted with my downsizing post from 3 years ago tomorrow.)

  • A month or so of half-heartedly looking at houses and condos that might work and explaining why they absolutely would not

  • A brief romantic fling with a seriously beat up home that we knew we could save; this turned out to be ridiculous but offered my first realization that I could live somewhere else and maybe be o.k.

  • Sometimes tearful conversations with the neighbors to let them know that, yes, the new siding was part of a plan to sell

  • More realistic forays into possible new dwellings

  • One offer that we obsessed over until we got word that it was not, in fact, enough

  • A shift of focus to getting the house ready to list

  • Renting a storage space for all the things we can live without until we live somewhere else

  • So many trips to the Goodwill drop off that the lady who is most often there to assist knows more about us than most of our blood relatives

In the middle of all this, the new yellow siding has been going up, making this house so flipping cute that it makes me smile and wince all at the same time. At first, improvements like a few new windows that open where the old ones didn’t and little fixes that we’ve been meaning to get to for years made us a little ouchy with regret that we’d waited so long to do those things. That ache has given way to envisioning “the next people” and our shared hope that they’ll be as happy here as we’ve been.

Here’s what has worked best for me up to this point:

  • Constantly reminding myself that, for now, we’re just getting the house ready to show; we can focus on moving once we’ve accepted an offer

  • Keeping the “to-do” list handy

  • Our personal April throw away or give away challenge: 10 items per day each, every day for this month

  • Getting that storage space!

  • Relative to the previous two points, the “psychic space” cleared when physical space is opened up is truly calming, literally opening up more breathing room

  • Thinking about our next home as a new adventure

  • Crossing off completed items on the “to-do” list

  • The stuff I already knew and just reread in my downsizing post from three years ago

  • Cookies

Today is April 26. We’re hoping to start showings mid-May. The plan has always been to go to a hotel for that first weekend of showings but, guess what? Madison in mid-May is graduation season. No rooms, unless you count the high dollar Air BnB options. The new plan is to get out early, stay out late, come home to sleep and repeat. We’ll adjust the schedule for weekdays. Since we know the most motivated buyers will show up those first couple of days, we want to be well out of the way. I’ll check in again that weekend and let you know how it’s going. By then, that writing will likely be therapeutic. It’s worth mentioning that my heart did not start racing and my breathing didn’t change as I typed that. Also worth mentioning is that this whole time, there’s been drilling and pounding outside my window (siding job still in progress). Oh, that reminds me, when you’re having work done on the outside of your house, take the art off the inside of those walls. If you don’t, it will fall off. And, yes, I learned that the hard way.

Michelle McKiernan