Buying, Selling and Renting

It's like the Triple Crown of Real Estate. Last week we sold the first house I ever owned, and, in the same week we bought a new one that we both love. In the meantime we found someone to take over our apartment lease with our rental company, only to have them back out at the last minute. So now we're showing our apartment as we figure out ways to entertain the kids over the long weekend and pack and clean.

Needless to say I'm starting to lose it. The first thing that seems to be going is my ability to sleep. I can't get to sleep, and I can't stay asleep. And when I do manage a little shut eye all I dream about are boxes.

Moving is always traumatic for me because of how much I've saved over the years. Oh, I've gotten rid of most of my "stuff," but what I can't bear to part with is the printed word. Especially words that I have personally printed, or typed, or scrawled. I spend a lot of time (for my job) going through the archives of others. And when I move I become re-acquainted with my own.

I asked Casey tonight what she was going to miss most about our current home. "My doll house!" she said brightly. "We're taking that with us!" I explained. "Oh! OK!" She replied. "How about you, Jacob?" "I'll miss the light. There's a lot of light in this apartment." "Yah, me too. We'll try to get some more light into our new house, OK? And, plus, over there we'll have a YARD that we can play in!"

As with all of our big transitions, I think my kids deal better with change than I do. Change is hard for me. But I'm also really excited to be moving into the first house that Josh and I picked out together. Going through my personal archive I found a napkin that I wrote on the night Josh and I got engaged (24 January 2003). Moving to our new house feels a little bit like getting engaged---the excitement, the fear, and, especially, the not being able to sleep.