There is a For Sale sign in my front
yard, pounded it into the frozen grass under the snow. And suddenly we are under the scrutinizing
eye of (what feels to me like) the whole world and nothing less than perfection
is acceptable. The only thing I can
compare it to is the last week before my due date with my second child. I knew
if I had to go to the hospital to give birth and there was a cup in the sink,
that cup would be there waiting to be washed when I got back even though I had
just expelled a child from my body and would not be sleeping for the next year.
So I didn't leave dishes in the sink, didn't leave laundry undone, perfected
and re-perfected the nursery, and convinced my daughter it was more fun to look
at her toys than to actually take them out and play with them. Selling a house
is pretty much the same thing. Flawlessness is expected at all times because
you never know when the bomb will drop (aka. someone will want to do a
last-minute showing).
The realtor advised that nothing should
be on any surfaces- kitchen counters, mantle, tops of bookshelves or dressers,
etc. I can't live like that. My house is normally neat, but relatively full.
Now I've put everything that was on those places into closets or boxes in the
basement. I can't find the lint brush for the life of me. I've been wearing the
same pair of earings for two weeks because it's too much trouble to dig out my
carefully hidden jewelry box. And there are no pictures of my babies anywhere.
Those were particularly hard to take
down. They left marks on the walls and empty places where I normally get to see
their faces and remember their still-round cheeks. Instead the realtor hung
pictures of wine glasses. I think she was going for sophisticated. Instead it
looks like a liquor store.
So every day I barely hold the mess at
bay, wiping down the counters and sweeping up the cat litter because those
things may convince a potential buyer that my house isn't good enough for them
to live in. They will, theoretically, be unable to see past the Peter Pan
(removable!!!) decals on my daughter's walls or the tiniest spot of toothpaste on
the bathroom mirror and see the big rooms, the nice street, the new appliances,
the spaces where they could bring their things and live their lives. I get the
theory. I understand that they want to see their life and not mine. They don't
care that my kids took their first steps on these floors, or walked out that
front door on her first day of school, or looked in fascination out of these
windows to see their first snowfall. They care about square footage and the
number of closets. It makes sense and I am doing the same in looking for a new
place to live. But it stings a bit to undo the years of living in this house,
to erase ourselves from our home, to remove our footprints from the place that
we felt most comfortable and at ease.
I look forward to finding our new
place. I am anxious to take their pictures back out, to remind myself of those
moments and memories and start to plan all the new ones as I unpack boxes and
find the perfect place for every thing. Just as soon as I can get someone to
fall in love with this place that I have loved and lived.
