8/18/07

After we made our offer, I was in ecstasy. A day later, when, to my horror (and delight) the offer was accepted, I crashed.  I don't want to leave here! But I want the new house, too! We still have to sell our house - both our houses - in order to buy the new house...hey, there's a chance it might not work out! But I will be SO disappointed if it doesn't! Today, I feel that (I hope) I am over the hump of all this ambivalence, and am really turning toward our future in the new place, but I've been pretty much a crazy person the past week. And I've been telling a lot of people, seeking permission, I think (what a baby I am!) The best thing I did so far was to call my elderly aunt to tell her about the new place.  She immediately liked the idea. Our conversation:

Me: "So, I have some exciting news...it looks like we're moving, to a very beautiful modern house at a ski resort near here." (and blah blah blah, more description of the place)

Aunt H: "How wonderful!"

Me: "But I'll miss our old house!"

Aunt H: "Of course you will, but the new house sounds just right for you."

Me: " But I love the place we're in."

Aunt H: "Yes, but sometimes your lifetime in a certain house ends and you have to move on."

Me: "But we'll have less money for a while."

Aunt H: "So you'll have less money for a while. That happens in life sometimes."

Me: "But would it be okay with my mother if I sell her house?" (we are not only selling the house we live in, but the house behind us where my mother lived, which I inherited.)

Aunt H: "That's just a rental house now. She's not there anymore. She'd be happy for you to have this new place."

Me: "But it's in an even colder growing zone! And the land is sloping! I don't know how to do alpine gardening!"

Aunt H: "That's how you learn! That's why you try new things! It's time for you to do this! "

Everyone needs an Aunt H.

This morning I woke up and started thinking about how I would set up the two downstairs rooms of the new place to be be an ideal studio for Japanese stencil dyeing, how I will finally be able to have a 4' by 12' table for pasting, areas to hang fabric, to carve and store stencils. Most of all, how I will be able to keep my work separate from the rest of the house.   I can hardly wait, but there's so much that has to happen before we can move, including the not-so-minor detail of selling our two houses in the current depressed housing market.

I wish we could be instantly beamed up into our new life...