Open House
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Our apartment is now officially on the market. After a week-plus of Operation DDD (Declutter, Deep Clean, & Donate), our home is looking pretty slamming, so I’m cautiously optimistic that it will strike some unknown New Yorker’s fancy. I hope so because we are slated to move into our new place in two months or so. Right around the time of my book release. This isn’t a busy time or anything. Nah.
Anyway, yesterday was our first open house. After yet another speed-cleaning operation, Husband, the girls and I left our place in the capable hands of our wonderful broker and drove to New Jersey to visit our good friends and their new home. While we were tending to backseat vomit volcanoes and touring our new friends’ palatial abode, our broker welcomed scores of strangers into our home. Strangers who then trouped through our space. Seeing our pictures. Seeing our stories. Seeing those terrible stains on our beleaguered white chairs.
It was an exquisite winter/spring day. We couldn’t have ordered up a better one. And we had a good time in New Jersey catching up with our friends and their two kids, watching our girls soak in the suburban splendor and run free in the space they will never quite have. And my mind was there. It was. On the laughter, on the appetizers, on the kiddie mayhem.
But my mind was also elsewhere. Here. On this house. On this home. This place that has pillowed me through so much. My safe haven. I kept imagining the parade of people walking from room to room. Running fingertips along surfaces. Our surfaces. Peeking through windows. Our windows. Loving or hating a layout. Our layout.
Yes, I couldn’t stop thinking of all those who stopped by to glimpse a house. A home. A world.
Our house. Our home. Our world.
After the open house was over, our broker called with a report. She said there were twenty-four parties who signed in! That there was a lot of good interest, that many people would like to make an appointment to come back and see our place again. And this is good. This is very good.
So why doesn’t this feel so good then? Why does this feel more complicated than good?
Because it is.
When night fell, we secured sleepy girls in car seats and made our way home. The drive was quick. And while Husband was returning Sister I’s car (I – there is no aromatic or physical evidence of baby vomit – I promise!), the girls and I settled in at home. We walked in and I turned the lights on.
And our place seemed different. There were no precarious piles of mail. There were no dishes in the sink. There were no cat toys littering the hardwoods. There was no mess. There was no noise.
The place already felt a little less ours.
I took the girls up to bed. We picked pajamas. We read a book. We sang a song. And as we did these things last night, I looked around. I lingered on things I wouldn’t otherwise notice. The pale yellow stripes on the wall we will leave behind. The black and white pattern on the carpet that won’t be ours for long.
And then I kissed my girls goodnight.
And this morning, I realize as I write these words, that my surge of emotion about moving, about big change, is probably perfectly par for the course. That transitions, even the most exquisite transitions, can be both beautiful and difficult at once.
And I realize something else – right here, right now – as I type these words one after the other. I realize that it is open house every day here chez ILI. You come here, benevolent strangers, and poke around. Some of you sign in with comments and some of you just come and go. But all of you take it in – the stories, the pictures, the questions. Each of you glimpses me and my world through the crafty and clumsy evidence I leave for you – my words, my worries, my wants. Some of you like what you see and come back. Some of you shake your head no and never return.
And now my mind flits feverishly, going where the metaphor, this good metaphor, takes me…
Is this blogosphere a virtureal estate market of sorts? Are we bloggers selling ourselves and our stories? Are we opening ourselves up and inviting others in? Are we advertising the aspects of our worlds? The layouts of our lives? The fixtures and fittings of our fears? The rooms of our regret? Are we, in effect, saying, Stop by, walk around, take a look, see if you like what I have to offer? See if it’s worth the investment?
Do we bloggers declutter our hearts and our heads and our homes before showing them off? Do we wipe down the surfaces of soul and psyche before letting people in? Do we touch up the paint of our parenthood or our personhood? Do we make ourselves seem more ordered, more open, more generic so that others will like us?
Or do we bloggers do the opposite? Do we welcome legions of strangers and say, I do not have it all together. Look at this clutter in my mind, look at this dirty pile of longing, look at the cracks in my ceiling?
Who knew that a simple open house would be (for me) not-so-simple? Who knew that contemplating good change would send me into a metaphorical Monday madness? Who knew that hanging a price tag on my past and my place would create a thicket of mixed feelings about permanence and progress?
(I did.)
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How have you handled the moves in your life (between homes, relationships, jobs, etc)? Did you have mixed feelings too? Do you enjoy attending open houses? If so, why? Do you agree that blogging is – in some sense – like hosting a 24/7 Open House? Where do you think this metaphor breaks down?
ILI DAILY CHARMS
I am hard at work on Novel #2, so I am having a tough time staying on top of my favorite blogs, but I just read two posts from favorite cyber creatives. Both have been blogging for a year now and both write exquisitely and evocatively about the past year and the ways in which blogging has changed them (and not changed them). Check out these women and their words:
* Liz of the heartfelt and hilarious blog …But Then I Had Kids looks back over her last year in her post 365 Posts + 109 Posts = One Revised Me.
* Sarah, one half of the delightful Momalom sister duo, celebrates the fact that it’s Spring Again.
That is a great metaphor for the blogging virtureal estate world. My rooms are filled with bright and happy times, creativity and inspiration. There have been a few times when I have opened the door to some darker rooms, insecurities, fears, sadness. But I quickly close the door. I don’t want that in my virtureal life.
As for moving…I know exactly what you are feeling. We had looked for a new house for about 4 years. (Okay. It was really me going to open houses and poking around on the internet). For my birthday this year my husband gave me a frame with a drawing of a house and a note “Let’s find our dream home!” in it. Touching. He was ready. When we started looking it all happened so fast. We found a house, it had most everything on our list, it was 2 blocks from my parents house (who promptly retired and moved to FL…but not becuase we moved in, or so they say…:-) and the price was significantly lowered due to a relocation company. We snatched it up and put our own house on the market the same day. But here we sit almost 5 months later and no takers on the old house. There are still things in the basement and garage, but we are loving our new life in our new home. I just can’t go back. You are lucky to have so many people interested. I am hoping something good will happen very soon. Because once we sell that house, I want to change some things about my life, namely that I want to pull back from my full-time-making-me-crazy day job and devote more time to my wearable works of art. But I can’t even think of that with two mortgages.
I wish you much joy on this journey you are on. And I look forward to hearing more of your experience.
Enjoy the day!
Erin
I have found I handle physical moves in my life much better than the relationship moves. Those take me a lot longer to deal with internally and externally.
I have never enjoyed attending Open Houses. It seems voyeuristic to me. Not that I don’t enjoy a good peak into others’ lives through their blog, but something about the owners not being there is freaky to me. Weird, huh?
Now I am off to think where the open house/blogging metaphor breaks down as I do think it is workable.
When my husband and I moved out of our townhouse and into our current house, it was so bittersweet…the townhouse was cute and tiny and affordable and WAY TOO SMALL. We were desperate to move out of there and into the house we now have. BUT, I CRIIIIIIEEEEEDDDDDDD so much because it made me so sad to leave our first real home. We’d brought our first child home to that little place….we’d gutted it and remodeled it on our own…we’d become a family there. It made me sad when I left. But I knew it was time to move on. (And I HATED hosting Open Houses. I felt violated every time.)
Oh, I try so hard to be genuine, to share my experiences openly in my writing. It isn’t easy though. There is a great urge to touch up, to organize, to put things in their place, to edit. But I’ve found great supportive readers, and that helps me to be revealing. In some ways, I’m more open and authentic here that I am in real life. A sad truth, isn’t it?
I touched on some of this a little bit in my own post today. I was exploring my motivationg for blogging and my inspirations for continuing. I’m amazed every day by the intimacy of posts written by others, quite challenged by how freely so many bloggers lay their lives quite bare for others to read, judge and evaluate. It’s true isn’t it, that others are judging and evaluating when they read, perhaps seeking solace in the troubles of others. I prefer to think of it as a network of woman who support each other, but sometimes I wonder.
On another note, I know just how you feel after the open house. A few years ago my husband and I had to sell a home that we had built ourselves (I mean this quite literally, we had physically done all the work). We were moving for all the right reasons and now live in another house that we built ourselves, but that first place was THE DREAM. It was gut-wrenching on so many levels, because not only were my emotions intertwined with so many family memories in our old house, but so were they intertwined with the sheer force of ourselves that had gone into building the house. It was so hard. After we had our open house, I felt a bit violated. If someone rejected it, it meant they were rejecting us. After that, it never felt quite the same and I think it helped me move on.
You have so much going on! Remember to take care of yourself and find moments of peace so that your mind can catch up. It’s hard, I know, I’ve been there.
Best of luck with the move. It is a true process of closure – that pre-move out period when you have to check with the realtors’ calendars before showing up at your home, when you have to essentially erase all traces of your life from the residence in order to make it look more like a model home. I sold my house last year, so I remember those feelings too.
Regarding the correlation to blogging, not so sure. Depends on the bloggers’ motivation.
Hope it goes well for you!
We are currently living in our fifth home as a couple and fourth as a family. Each time we move, it’s bittersweet. I’ve adored every place I’ve lived, so it’s always hard to leave “home” behind.
And, again, we find ourselves contemplating a move. This time – for the first time – to a smaller place. We have the palatial McMansion in the ‘burbs right now, and our kids are almost out of the house. This is far too much space for the two of us (although, we do have six feline captors holding us hostage, who I’m sure would beg to differ!). If we do move, I will be very sad. I love this house, our home, so much. I just wish I could shrink it down.
I love your comparison of our blogging real estate. I dust off the proverbial cobwebs before inviting others in. I want them to admire my writing and my crazy, unfinished world. I love that people think enough of “my place” to stop by and even comment. It’s an honor, for sure.
And, it’s a privilege to stop by here and see what’s new in your world. I love everything you’ve done with the place. Great, authentic design. Very tasteful. (Even with the stained chairs.) I always enjoy my visits.
I think that the dreadful process of getting a home ready to go on the market, holding those open houses, making appointments for more visits, and then (if you’re lucky!) the long drudgery of paperwork, inspections, and finally, closing, is there to help us let go of our homes. It’s a separation process. One that is so long and trying that we are damn ready to go when the house finally belongs to someone else.
Of course, what do I know? I’m a renter.
Leaving your home is never easy. I remember standing wistfully in front of a window in our first apartment as the movers carried everything out. I was so excited to be moving into our first house, but still said to leave the place where we’d gotten our start.
The one thing I love about moving? The purge! I love culling through accumulated stuff and making big drop-off runs to the Salvation Army. I that feeling of shedding extra stuff and getting pared down to the necessary.
I don’t particularly ‘neaten’ my life before displaying it all on my blog, and most of my favourite bloggers don’t seem to censor themselves too much… but then I like visiting people with untidy, “lived in” houses, it makes me feel much more comfortable!
Loving or hating a layout smacks of real life like nothing else. The story of our life is the constant rearranging of rooms to try and improve the damn layouts!
I love this.
Maybe partly because I know how much effort and stress goes into the ‘decluttering’ process before an open house. I know how false it feels to shiny up the surfaces of your home/life. And I like your metaphor to the blog world. I think we ARE inviting people in…strangers…and I think we’re selling ourselves to an extent. But I think the nice part is, we don’t have to have everything all shiny. Maybe our words are, but not our lives. And I think that’s what people like about it.
But now I’m curious (as I poke my head in to your life): are you moving to the suburbs like your friends, or are you moving into a new apartment in the city?
Putting your home up for sale is always disruptive, and filled with mixed emotions. But it’s a whole lot better when it’s your choice to do it, than when you’re forced to do so. Been there, done that. Hoping not to have to do it again.
We always make it through. We think it will be tougher on the kids. I now believe it’s tougher on the adults.
The thing that most struck me when our house was on the market was how naked our fridge looked. All the signs of life: the grocery list, preschool schedules, pizza coupons, photos, and of course the requisite kid art were gone. It was clean, but utterly barren and sterile. Lifeless. I was so happy when we could finally make the fridge our own again!
My bloggy space feels like a place where I can celebrate the good, process lessons learned from the bad, and hopefully invite others to do the same.
I had a totally opposite expreience when moving into my first home with Hubby…he grew up there, and his family never really moved out. What was hard was making it feel MINE…so many little steps, from the usual washing everything to boxing up my MIL’s piggy bank collection, which 3 years later, she still hasn’t taken! DEciding whose plates we’d use at dinner…I guess I felt like the visitor at the open house, I felt less comfy than I should have in my own new home. A few years and coats of paint later now, it does feel like home though. Transitions are always hard, no matter how happy they are.
I started blogging to help my farm business, so on some level I do tidy up what I say. I love to share the joys, but mostly the lows are mine alone. Not that I’m hiding anything per se, but dealing with the public (aka my readers) every Saturday, there are some comments and feelings you don’t want to relive every 10 minutes for hours on end. I think it would be easier to be more open if I had less face to face interaction with people who read my blog, if that makes any sense. I guess there is security in hiding behind an online persona?
Yes, this blogging is a tough business. I think that is why I have two blogs-one where I talk incessantly about my children and the other where I express my struggles, pains, joys, and pleasures. I am okay with people glancing through my personal blog, but when people tramp through my family blog I feel…violated. I realized that when I launched my personal blog that I was making a place for visitors. I am okay with that.
I love moving! I get to clean all the closets and throw out piles of useless artifacts that clutter my drawers.
I try and never look back. The house is just a house, a material thing. My home is me and my family where ever we are.
I deal with moving by not moving but adapting within the framework I already am. Case in point, when our apartment became too small for us, we bought the one next store and combined it with ours. I have been in the same organization for 14 years but have been in three different departments, changing after 5-6 years in each. I am sure I should be more adventurous, challenge myself more, look for even better space for my family but I am content. I don’t spend a lot of time exploring what else is out there which for the most part is a good thing but it is possible it has limited me. I think professionally I should start to think about what is next, and maybe I will, soon, sort of, in a way, but not today, because for now I’m good. Maybe that’s why I love ILI, I get to vicariously do it through you!
You and your blog are so wonderful. I was behind and am now all caught up (well, sort-of) and find myself thinking, “where did she find that image” or “God, I love that photo” or whatever.
You are a gift to the world – thanks!
Oh, and I’m on my 3rd house which has become a nightmare of vast proportions due to a builder who disappeared, a lawsuit going nowhere, and a middle aged woman learning to hang siding, but that’s a story better told with wine.
The worst part for me is passing along my flower garden blue-prints to folks whose eyes glaze over somewhere between “tulip bulb” and “drip system.” I told DH that just once I would like to see a garden come into fruition. Of course, then I had a 3rd kiddo and now I just name the weeds fancy names. 
First off, that is a really great metaphor.
Secondly, congrats on working on your next novel! I’m excited enough to read the first but this news makes it even better.
Finally, I lived in my own apartment for 3.5 years with my cat and boyfriends coming in-and-out. When I finally moved out to come here I was devastated! I kept procrastinating the DDD’s (
) until the very last second because it was too emotional to bear. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for you uprooting your whole family. You are a very brave soul (and obviously on to better things 
Wow, excellent thought-provoking post. I have never viewed a blog as a 24-7 window into someone’s world, but I can certainly see the similarities.
I can relate to the odd feeling about leaving a residence. With my childhood home, my parents waited to tell me until it was a week away from going on the market–they did not want to disappoint me. I did make it home from out of state for one day to say goodbye and walk all of space prior to the sale being finalized.
Best wishes with finding a buyers.
Well, I’ve lived in the same house nearly the whole 17 years of my marriage. Recently we made an offer on a new house that wasn’t accepted but for a few days I was walking around a bit catatonic. I hate to imagine how I’d feel leaving this house, though I’ve fantasized about leaving this gated neighborhood forever. I have a funny feeling I’d be one of those people who’d have to buy their house back again later.
As far as a blog being an open house, what a lovely metaphor that is, Aidan! I know when I started mine, the door was only open a crack – the topic was narrow and it was for my eyes only. Over time I expanded my topics but here and there I found I got stuck on what I thought others’ expectations of me were. Now, miracle of miracles, I’ve found that I can write seriously and humorously and I can live through it. So it’s an open house in that it’s my brain and people are invited in, but it’s not in that they can’t keep it forever, but they can keep visiting.
I love this metaphor: blogging as open house.
When we sold our little house in NJ 9 years ago, it was so hard to resign oneself to the traipsing thru of all the potential buyers. A realtor once scolded me because I said absolutely not on Christmas Eve. We have been in our Vineyard home almost as long as that NJ house, yet maybe because my babies came home from the hospital there, learned to walk, it just seems we left an indelible mark there. Or it left one on us. Either is good I suppose.
Good Luck with the craziness of showing your home. Tough to say goodbye to treasured places, but oh, the excitement and potential of a new home!