We're getting ready to put our house on the market. A little new carpet, a little new paint, and a horrifyingly expensive retaining wall are all that stand between us being able to sell the old homestead and look for something better. Much thanks is owed to our good friend and realtor, Jess, who has been a help in so many ways. She's really gone above and beyond, and we aren't even listed yet. I was very happy to be able to help her a little bit last week, and like so many other random things, the experience got me thinking.
A week or so ago, Jess came by to take a good look at the house, make some staging suggestions, and discuss the pricing and listing. We got to talking, and she mentioned a listing that she is going to have shortly in Seven Hills. Naturally, since I grew up there, I asked her where the house was in Seven Hills. And naturally, when she told me Pleasant Valley Road, I asked her to be more specific. And when she told me, I realized that it was a house I was very familiar with! The previous owners' daughter had gone to grade school and high school with me, and I had been to the house many, many times. Jess asked me if I knew anything about the house, which is a really neat turn of the century farmhouse. Unfortunately all that I could tell her was that the house and grounds were really cool, which was not particularly helpful. It had been a few years since I had talked to her, but I offered to try and get in touch with my old friend and see what she could tell us about the house.
The email address that I had didn't seem to get through, but I asked around among our mutual grade school and high school friends and I was able to get in touch. It was really great to reconnect. She could not have been more excited to share the extensive history of her childhood home, as well as all of the renovations that her parents had done to house. She also told me how much she loved that house, how much the house meant to her, and asked if it would be possible to bring her husband and children to see it.
That gave me what my sister would call "the warm fuzzies." I'm not particularly attached to the house we live in right now. The neighborhood maybe, but not the house. We didn't pick it out together and though we renovated it top to bottom, it was a stressful, expensive process that caused a lot of arguing and a lot of very quiet nights. It ran way over budget and way over the timeline. And a lot of stupid things went wrong that weren't even in our renovation plans. (Though the buyer of the house is going to be blessed with a lovely new hot water tank, furnace, and air conditioner.) The finished product is beautiful, but to me it's still just a house and I'm not sad to part with it.
I'm not attached to any house that I've lived in. My last few years of living in my first Akron home were painful and traumatic and I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I still own it (thanks 2008) but I can't bear to be inside it. I never cared for my childhood home in Seven Hills. That's nothing against my family, but the house itself just wasn't my style. We moved to Seven Hills just before I started the first grade and I never really felt like I fit in there. Plus, it's been redone so many times that even though my parents still live there, it doesn't feel like the house I grew up in. And I guess I was just too young to be attached to the house we lived in before that.
It's something to think about as we start seriously looking for our next house. Do houses help shape who we are? Is there something about them that is intangible, that can make a difference? Should I be looking at more than kitchens and dining rooms and whether or not there is wallpaper that I have to tear down? Do people build houses, or do houses, as Miranda Lambert says, build us?
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Monday, March 2, 2015
Feel
I'm not a very openly emotional person. I don't burst into tears when I fight with my husband. I don't cry at movies and most of the time I don't even cry at funerals. Despite my tendency towards nostalgia, which many people would say indicates that I am an emotional person, I tend to disagree. When an intense emotional situation presents itself, I tend to think more along the lines of "What can I do here?" Most times, the answer is nothing. And if there is nothing I can do, I move on.
That's not to say that I don't feel or get upset. What I have always done in most emotionally intense circumstances is tell myself "Kate, you can be upset. For one day." (Or hour or week, depending on the situation.) A good example of this is a work conflict I had with someone a couple years back. It escalated to the point that no matter what, there was nothing I could do to change the situation. I could only change how I reacted to that situation. Basically what I did was I allowed myself that weekend to be angry, to hurt, to sort of let it all fester. Monday morning I shut it off, blocked it out, and went out into the world like nothing happened. I've done this kind of thing a lot throughout my life. But something happened yesterday that made me think that maybe this isn't the best way to handle the situation.
Another "emotional flaw" of mine (along with getting the giggles in serious situations and crying hysterically when I am angry at someone) is that on the rare occasion that the emotional floodgates open, it all comes out. Kind of like on The Walking Dead, when the fence got weak at the prison and the zombies all pushed and pushed and knocked it over, flooding the yard. On the rare day that it rains, it pours.
That happened yesterday.
I had a fantastic weekend in Orlando, which most of you know is my most favorite city in the world. Through some bad planning, I was the last of our group to leave. As the day wore on, I started to feel the letdown that happens whenever I leave Orlando. I was on my way to Target with Tera (who lives there) and Dianna (who was staying the week, and had her family flying in just before I flew out.) Dianna glanced at me from the driver's seat and commented that I hadn't been this quiet in my whole life. She asked if I was okay. To which I replied, "Always am." I started remembering all the times I had flown back to Ohio, leaving my sister behind. As we unpacked groceries in her rented condo I was thinking how sad it was that we were all kind of trickling out of Orlando. A bummer, but okay.
Then we drove to the airport, where I maintained my silence thinking about other things. Before you all get appalled that I wasn't excited to get home to my kids, let me share that they weren't even going to be there. They were snowed in at my sister in law's in Columbus. So not only am I being separated from my favorite city, and leaving behind some of my favorite people, my own family isn't even going to be there when I get home. Cue the tears, but I held them back.
When we got to the airport, I checked my bag and went with Tera and Dianna to meet her family. Now, with the exception of my own family and a small handful of you Columbkille kids, no one has known me longer than Dianna and her family. It was a happy reunion of hugs. I was sad, but I was good. After they got their bags the goodbyes started, and I was okay until my 9 year old godson hugged me and asked, confused, "Where are you going?"Dianna jumped in and explained, freeing me to rush off to my gate in tears.
Thankfully Maureen was delayed getting out to Dulles, so she was able to more or less sort me out before she left. By this point all I want to do is get to my gate, get on the plane, and get home. But that would have been too easy. I had to fight my way through a pack of soccer hooligans and go through security a second time. I forced myself to eat something so I wouldn't be starving when I got home and sat at my gate. Remember what I said about my emotional floodgates? Here is where is really all went crazy. I'm alone in the Orlando airport, appropriately upset, but then things that have absolutely nothing to do with the current situation start popping into my head and making things worse.
It's Lent. During Lent in 1996, my grandmother died. A few days before I was going to show her my prom dress. During Lent in 2005, my grandfather died, a few days before I was going to bring him pictures of my dog. During Lent of 2007 my uncle died, before reading a very important letter from his daughter. There were a few other things that popped into my head that are a little too personal to even write here, but they were losses and situations that tore me up inside. Think back to the beginning of this painfully long blog. Are these things that still upset me because I only allowed myself to hurt from them for a few days? Is it impossible for the heart to heal from things like this if you put a time constraint on it?
Thankfully I got on the plane, and between my peanut M&Ms and my perky, Bible reading seatmate, I was able to pull it together. I dug out my car, got myself home and swam through the snow into the house. I fell into an exhausted sleep.
I'm not a mess right now, even after flooding my bathroom this morning. I feel pretty stable, compared to the hot mess I was yesterday, but as I was sitting in traffic this morning I decided that maybe the next time something happens that really hurts, breaks my heart or makes me really sad, I'm going to try feeling it all the way through. Because if I don't lock it in a box after a weekend, maybe I don't ever have to worry about it breaking out and ambushing me at Gate 110 of the Orlando airport.
That's not to say that I don't feel or get upset. What I have always done in most emotionally intense circumstances is tell myself "Kate, you can be upset. For one day." (Or hour or week, depending on the situation.) A good example of this is a work conflict I had with someone a couple years back. It escalated to the point that no matter what, there was nothing I could do to change the situation. I could only change how I reacted to that situation. Basically what I did was I allowed myself that weekend to be angry, to hurt, to sort of let it all fester. Monday morning I shut it off, blocked it out, and went out into the world like nothing happened. I've done this kind of thing a lot throughout my life. But something happened yesterday that made me think that maybe this isn't the best way to handle the situation.
Another "emotional flaw" of mine (along with getting the giggles in serious situations and crying hysterically when I am angry at someone) is that on the rare occasion that the emotional floodgates open, it all comes out. Kind of like on The Walking Dead, when the fence got weak at the prison and the zombies all pushed and pushed and knocked it over, flooding the yard. On the rare day that it rains, it pours.
That happened yesterday.
I had a fantastic weekend in Orlando, which most of you know is my most favorite city in the world. Through some bad planning, I was the last of our group to leave. As the day wore on, I started to feel the letdown that happens whenever I leave Orlando. I was on my way to Target with Tera (who lives there) and Dianna (who was staying the week, and had her family flying in just before I flew out.) Dianna glanced at me from the driver's seat and commented that I hadn't been this quiet in my whole life. She asked if I was okay. To which I replied, "Always am." I started remembering all the times I had flown back to Ohio, leaving my sister behind. As we unpacked groceries in her rented condo I was thinking how sad it was that we were all kind of trickling out of Orlando. A bummer, but okay.
Then we drove to the airport, where I maintained my silence thinking about other things. Before you all get appalled that I wasn't excited to get home to my kids, let me share that they weren't even going to be there. They were snowed in at my sister in law's in Columbus. So not only am I being separated from my favorite city, and leaving behind some of my favorite people, my own family isn't even going to be there when I get home. Cue the tears, but I held them back.
When we got to the airport, I checked my bag and went with Tera and Dianna to meet her family. Now, with the exception of my own family and a small handful of you Columbkille kids, no one has known me longer than Dianna and her family. It was a happy reunion of hugs. I was sad, but I was good. After they got their bags the goodbyes started, and I was okay until my 9 year old godson hugged me and asked, confused, "Where are you going?"Dianna jumped in and explained, freeing me to rush off to my gate in tears.
Thankfully Maureen was delayed getting out to Dulles, so she was able to more or less sort me out before she left. By this point all I want to do is get to my gate, get on the plane, and get home. But that would have been too easy. I had to fight my way through a pack of soccer hooligans and go through security a second time. I forced myself to eat something so I wouldn't be starving when I got home and sat at my gate. Remember what I said about my emotional floodgates? Here is where is really all went crazy. I'm alone in the Orlando airport, appropriately upset, but then things that have absolutely nothing to do with the current situation start popping into my head and making things worse.
It's Lent. During Lent in 1996, my grandmother died. A few days before I was going to show her my prom dress. During Lent in 2005, my grandfather died, a few days before I was going to bring him pictures of my dog. During Lent of 2007 my uncle died, before reading a very important letter from his daughter. There were a few other things that popped into my head that are a little too personal to even write here, but they were losses and situations that tore me up inside. Think back to the beginning of this painfully long blog. Are these things that still upset me because I only allowed myself to hurt from them for a few days? Is it impossible for the heart to heal from things like this if you put a time constraint on it?
Thankfully I got on the plane, and between my peanut M&Ms and my perky, Bible reading seatmate, I was able to pull it together. I dug out my car, got myself home and swam through the snow into the house. I fell into an exhausted sleep.
I'm not a mess right now, even after flooding my bathroom this morning. I feel pretty stable, compared to the hot mess I was yesterday, but as I was sitting in traffic this morning I decided that maybe the next time something happens that really hurts, breaks my heart or makes me really sad, I'm going to try feeling it all the way through. Because if I don't lock it in a box after a weekend, maybe I don't ever have to worry about it breaking out and ambushing me at Gate 110 of the Orlando airport.
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