Heartbreak Hotel 3

So now, almost 6 months down the tract from that beautiful and happy day in December I find myself here and trying to work out how this happened.
During the Christmas period I took a bit of time off work for the first time in many years and was at the tail end of a hard slog to settle my Grandfathers Estate and was aware that at some point I would need to grieve properly for this loss but hasn’t has the time or the willingness to do this just yet, not properly anyway, grief is a funny thing like that, you can miss someone on a daily, weekly basis etc even every second, which I do and I did, but when someone dies those feelings exist but the true grief comes later when the total and complete realisation that they are actually gone sets in – this is what I hadn’t had time to do.
I spent some time on my own during this little hiatus over the summer period, much of it was at my house when I was there doing bits and pieces of renovations to it and I suddenly realised that this house represented to me so much more than what it should.
I started to reflect on my life and the things that I had done to make myself financially secure and the sacrifices I have made in order to make that happen. I had a mortgage before I left Uni, built a house, like actually we built much of the house ourselves (my ex-husband and I), this took two years, we lived there for 3 years and never slept in it once when it was actually completed. We managed to put the last coat of paint on and do the very last of the building before we moved out and moved to the little house we had bought in Abbotsford, leaving all that hard work behind for some tenants.
The plan was great, we would now renovate the house in Abbotsford and we had an investment property and two great incomes and then one day he walked in and said he was leaving.
We sold the house to the tenants for a great price which meant I could afford to keep my little piece of paradise in Abbotsford, my saving grace, my security and my safe place.
But after many years there over this past Christmas period I started to realise that it was because of this house I was and had done for a long time made the choices I had made.
Travel was something I had no alternative but to sacrifice, a holiday was completely out of the question, time off work means no pay so saving for a holiday means having to save for the repayments on the house for that period of time as well, and not that this would have been impossible but with a fairly active social life and a serious addiction to shoes and collecting nice clothes it was never going to happen.
I was scared shitless when I thought of selling my house. This concept flew in the face of every working class value that was instilled in me since the time I can recall, financial security and home ownership are the most important and critical things one can achieve and the only way I knew I could break the cycle of fear that has prevented the rest of my family from travelling and living their lives the way they wanted to was to throw caution to the wind and just go ahead and do it – to hell with the consequences I decided I wanted to see the world and be free from my house making my decisions for me.
With that I put the house on the market. I only just managed to sign the contact with the real estate agent, my hands were shaking so much and I could hardly breathe. But I did it. The sign went up and people started coming in.
The boyfriend and I had been looking for a house that was big enough for both of us for about 12 months, but it would be fair to say that I lived at his place anyway throughout most of this time and just before my house went on the market he asked me to move into his house even though we had not been able to find something bigger and more appropriate for two big personalities and a couple of crazy dogs, so we made it official and I moved in.
My plan was actually just to look for somewhere to rent after my house was sold, I thought I would stay local and possibly look for a short term lease that when it ended would let me travel a bit without having to pay rent while I was away, but I wanted to live with the boyfriend and given that I was there all the time anyway it made sense. We were always happier when we were together than apart even for one night so it seemed sensible to just suck up the fact that it was going to be hard with the lack of space, my shoes would just have to live with it.
The day of the sale of my house was perfect weather wise, 25th March, 11am and a huge crowd. Great I thought. I stocked the fridge with Moet and waited out the back shaking like a leaf when the Auction was on.
When it was over and I got a better price that I could ever have imagined I slammed down a few too many champers and took the pen in my shaking hand and signed the contract of sale. The house was no longer mine, it was gone, for someone else to breath life into it – but I was moving on and about to start a life with someone I loved with every speck of my sole and we were going to have the life I never thought in my wildest dreams I could have had, or even deserved, I didn’t know why, but he wanted me and this as much as I did. How did I get so lucky……….