After we saw it I asked her to call the listing broker about a few things, but it was just a stall tactic. I needed more time to know why I didn't want it.
Why didn't I want it? It had everything and more and the quirks could be unquirked. And the unquirked could be quirked. Or whatever.
At the office, my friend asked me how it was and all I could think of was "It's so classy. Like it was decorated by grown ups. It didn't speak to me." Because buying my SECOND home was still something a not-grown up would do? (That sounded braggy... it's not meant to.)
And my agent called to answer the questions I'd made up, and all I could say was "I don't know why I'm so lukewarm about it. Why aren't I putting in an offer?" And she very diplomatically said "If it was right it would feel right and it must not."
And it didn't feel right.
The neighborhood is one I know well. After college, my boyfriend and I moved into a tiny little house a block away from the property I looked at this morning. When I drove by last night I also drove by "our" house and the restaurant we used to walk to every time it snowed and where I used to buy cigarettes (I quit 10+ years ago, fyi) and the park only I would walk to... And the block where I found Libby, our surprise chihuahua that I loved more than life, but gave up in the (not) divorce.
This relationship ended 13 years ago. It ended amicably, until 4 months after the breakup he decided he had to confess that he'd cheated. Why? Because his friend was caught cheating the night before his wedding and in some fucked up sense of solidarity or martyrdom or whatever, he needed to confess his sins too so that Super Douche wasn't alone in being villainized.I remember the conversation. He called me at work to tell me that the time I knew he'd cheated on me but he'd denied it he'd definitely cheated on me. Then he asked if I hated him.... which was incredibly manipulative of him because I still totally loved him even though we'd been broken up for 4 months. "I don't hate you. I hate what you did."
How very diplomatic of me.
Until I suddenly hated him. Hated him and what he did more than anything in the world. Because I could have survived the heartache of the breakup, but the deceit was more than I could bear. He obviously knew that because he didn't go home so I could punch him in the face. I had to go home and try not to die. (<--- the drama of a break up at 23... which is really not all THAT different at 36, but a little.)
A few years ago he reached out on Facebook and asked to be my friend. I sent him a message, cordially, and without anger, that I wouldn't be accepting his friend request because we weren't friends. We were people who used to know each other. He responded that he understood and that he was just being nice, but hoped I was doing well.
We exchanged a few more pleasant emails catching up on each others' families, but nothing more. My rage had quieted. The hurt is barely a faint scar.
But I think that house might be haunted. The front yard faces the front yard of the house where we lived (with two houses in the way) . Where we loved. Where I asked him if he wanted to get married.
I don't talk about that because it's embarrassing. I basically proposed to him... but in a very casual and indie rock sort of way... "Hey. Should we maybe get married? And luckily he turned me down.
But I don't think I can live around the corner from the mexican restaurant where we shared snows. Or the liquor store that knew us by name and brand of cigarette.
And it wasn't until today... tonight actually, that I realized that the neighborhood is haunted by memories I don't need to relive regularly. It's not an evil ghost and I'm sure if I bought that house all demons would eventually be exorcized, but I definitely don't have to. I definitely can just walk away from the ghost like I did 13 years ago and know that the perfect house maybe picked at a tiny little scab that I thought was just a scar.
Time heals all wounds? Sometimes it just buries them.
Rest in peace, little wound.
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