This week I drove past our house several times to see how the new tenants are settling in. Not that I can tell much from the outside, but it felt necessary to see someone else moving in and recognise that we aren’t just on holiday – we have moved out.
Yes we are now homeless, or so it feels, although in reality we have a bricks and mortar address at my parent’s house. But we have given up the place we have lived in and called home for the last eleven years. We now have a home on wheels, but I think it will take some time to settle in.
Paul and I have been treading on eggshells around each other for the last month. The process of packing up the house and preparing it for letting has been more emotionally demanding than either of us imagined and we have both been on edge. This has mostly manifested in accusing each other of doing unnecessary jobs. The two of us often have different perspectives of what is important, but normally this adds up to a consensus that is greater than the sum of its parts. However on the run up to our move we encountered situations where the discussion would have generated fruitless argument, so we had a few silent moments as we counted to 10 (or more) and gritted our teeth and got on with what we considered to be the right things. And those moments of frustration were unloaded on friends and family… what else are they there for?
As a final ‘hurrah’ we had a leaving party in our empty house. Everyone was very well behaved considering the amount of alcohol drunk (I counted over ninety cans of various types when I cleared up the next morning, not to mention empty bottles of wine and spirits). Then Mum and Dad joined us on our last day of cleaning, leaving the kitchen and bathrooms looking cleaner than they’ve ever been.
Now it’s done and we’re feeling that sense of freedom that comes from finishing something and handing it over – we can’t keep tweaking it now and if the tenants find any issues we’ll have to deal with them as they arise.