Just this time last year, I graduated. One of my final courses was a studio art class where I made this giant dollhouse. 9 feet tall, in the confines of our little apartment garage. Borrowed tools from my Dad. A lot of kind friends and family members helping it get finished. Making this thing, sourcing the materials and ideas, it was a meditation on my fear, really - that we might never own a home. Financial challenges made me afraid that we would forever be renters. That renting, even - might be too hard as economic times continued with difficulty. So I made this house as a fulfilled dream, on whatever scale I could accomplish it. And then I graduated.
One year later, we find ourselves at the end of months of house-hunting with a realtor. Our first meetings with him left me feeling like a bad actor. That these terms and questions and scenarios couldn't possibly be for my maturity level. It still seemed like things for an older generation. And today I'm 33. The unfamiliarity of it all left me feeling like a little kid - someone more fitted to a dollhouse than a mortgage. But gradually, as these mysteries became understandings, the fear turned to hope and then to confidence that this was our correct timing, and soon we would probably escape the vicious cycle of financial loss that is renting. Renting has served us well when we needed it, and we have been blessed to live in places safe and lovely. But we are also so ready to move on. To have a place that is in fact our own. To build up, to destroy in parts, to generate for our children that protected feeling I remember having in a house, that the walls seemed to embrace and love me as they watched my youth unfold.
We have had quite an adventure in hunting. Our search has spanned several zip codes and we have compared and contrasted homes 1400 to over 3000 square feet in size. Tidy small places. Giant, crumbling foreclosures, and everything inbetween. The most memorable property was one that had tall trees filling the whole front yard. I can barely begin to explain it. It was like all these skinny trees were stuck in the yard like big straws, with bizarre water features and Christmas lights left hanging. Then, inside there were mirrored walls and strange textured walls with small squares having one silver thumbtack hammered into the center of each spot. By the hundreds. I just imagined some person, hour after hour, hammering tacks into these squares all up and down the walls. Then we went outside. A huge wall of bamboo was actually very beautiful outside the pool, but with a strange mesh fence that didn't seem to make sense. This odd, hollow area was over what should have been the only patch of grass in the yard . . . and from what we gathered, "grass" was likely the exact thing underneath. Strange water features flowed between different areas and we gradually pieced together that somebody MUST have been growing something verrrrry special on this land. Our realtor suggested we take my Dad out there as a joke and try to convince him that this was "the ONE!" Haha! These were our adventures over the last months.
We had narrowed it down to three properties. All of these homes sit along a fantastic web of jogging trails, surrounded by thick woods and trees that remind me of my childhood in Connecticut, not the blazing heat of Texas. We've walked the trails in various places and utterly fallen in love with the area. Bit by bit, our simple dreams of shared family memories are seeming to come true. We finally decided to place an offer on this one, very small but incredibly charming little home on a street called "Hanover." Andy has long dreamed of gardening and landscaping as I have dreamed about painting murals in nurseries. The backyard is beautiful and we can see ourselves entertaining and just "hanging out" at night, doing the silly, simple things we like to do as a family, just with that much more lovely a space. So we offered, they countered, we offered again and we waited.
Last night, we had a date night long-planned, to go see Arcade Fire (a really fantastic band, if you don't know them) play a concert in Dallas. We never go out. It was our latest date night yet since Tessa's birth. We have so few recent memories of traipsing around together, holding hands, being a couple, without something urgent or pressing to do. It was a much needed night out as grown-ups. All through the evening, we talked about our plan for a counter-offer, and what we were willing and not willing to propose. Opening acts played, we walked around, and then returned with a few minutes before the main show hit the stage. Sitting there in the dark, Andy's phone lit up and I immediately saw the words "offer accepted!" . . . we were stunned that they accepted our counter, truly never expecting it, since they had only budged by a small amount the first time. We hardly ever kiss in public. And right then, we put on quite the show, me with my big pregnant belly, surrounded mostly by teenagers, given new energy to enjoy this wonderful show! The band came out within moments and the album they were promoting was called "The Suburbs." As they started to play, vintage-looking film footage of kids on bicycles in old Texas neighborhoods flashed on the screen. A big sign lit up in red "THE SUBURBS." Houses and kids punching eachother on front lawns, the lead-singer then telling stories of his childhood in Houston, with some parts "depressing," and nostalgia for the warm Texas rain. It was almost frightening how everything seemed to go together to make this complicated but beautiful story that wasn't all fantasy, but many parts hard reality and some parts hidden, sometimes exquisite beauties of family and life and home, for whatever that ends up meaning to all of us. And here we were, setting one foot into making a real home for ourselves, doing that sort of "settling down" that you hear people talk about all the time - with all its relief and hope and all the fears that seem to make sense.
They want to close 20 days before our lease is up (we'll see how it ends up. Our plan is to request more time!) We have moving expenses. We need a fridge and a lawnmower and paint. Our apartments have usually charged us upwards of $700 at move-out, for carpets and wall paint and all the things they will replace, regardless of condition (love that!) We are so excited to be burdened with this new responsibility, and so grateful that we might ever have the chance to consider these things! And our son will be here July 29! Such adventures. Such joy!
