At the ripe old age of 21, we bought our first home. It was a 2 bedroom duplex, the best layout we had seen in the 6? months of searching. To be honest, we didn’t really care too much about what we bought as we had missed out on 4 contracts prior to this. And each of those duplexes I had become overly attached to, planning where I was to put furniture and painting the walls in my head. We had only been looking in one particular suburb, but the cheap price of one 20 minutes away had lured me to call the agent and book an appointment.
SD had a whinge about the area, and I basically guilted him into coming to the inspection on the Friday afternoon. On the Friday morning, Astoria was sick. I rang work and said I would be late and after finally coaxing the sausage cat into her cage, I arrived at the vet. She had howled and cried and vomited and shat the whole journey and I was less than impressed when my phone rang as I struggled to lift the cage out of the car and balance on my cork wedges.
‘What?’ I had answered.
‘It’s so –and-so-whats-his-face here, just confirming our appointment this afternoon at such and such an adress’
‘oh…um…I don’t know’
‘Just tell me if you will be there or not’
‘Look, my cat is really sick’
‘Yes or no’
‘Fine, I will be there’. I hung up, really pissed off with the whole real estate thing and poor Astoria was sicker than the time she got hammered on vodka.
As we pulled up to the duplex that afternoon, SD was still bitching and moaning for whatever reason. The house itself was not a sight for sore eyes. It probably made regular eyes sore. Inside wasn’t much different. It was tenanted by a guy with a bad back who couldn’t take care of it. It was dull and shoddy. However, the backyard was the biggest I had ever seen for a 2 bedroom duplex. We stood underneath a huge flowering jacaranda tree, which showered us in purple petals. We stood there are listened…..there was nothing……at all of our previous inspections, you could constantly hear the drum of the highway. We locked eyes and decided again to sign the dotted line of an offer. Soon, it would be ours.
Both full-time workers at the time, me in real estate and SD in hospitality, we had grand plans for timber flooring, a new patio, carport, fencing, veggie gardens, compost heaps, worm farms, etc etc. 6 months later, the novelty of real estate and realizing I worked with a bunch of old, depressed and jaded agents who were making me turn jaded and depressed eased me into the decision to finally study primary education. SD soon after decided he wanted to study secondary education. And all plans for the house fell by the wayside as we each studied and worked hard.
The memories that flashed before my eyes as I locked the door for the final time before handing the keys in for settlement include:
- Discovering the swans, pelicans and ducks directly across the road from our house, which we could feed every day.
- The lovely neighbor who brought over homemade lemonade for us to drink whilst we moved in.
- Gardening whilst Astoria gallivanted around.
- Discovering a conservation park about 50 metres away, full of kangaroos and wallabies.
- SD trying to get rid of a wasp nest on our lemon tree which I filmed and posted on youtube and totally embarrassed him.
- Finding out I was pregnant and standing in the spare room, absolutely stoked.
- Trying unsuccessfully to hide the cot we bought at 9 weeks pregnant from our neighbours.
- The last day I shared with Stora.
- The first day we brought SB home and placed him in his bassinette.
It was 6 months ago we decided to sell our home. We simply couldn’t do everything, be everything we wanted to be in a 3 year period. Home owners with plans to renovate and invest, parents to a couple of babies born close together, honours student and student (I’m the latter!), good partners, good friends (we pretty much abandoned everyone and had very little time for eachother) and worthy family members.
Sadly, we listened to everyone else and tried to hold on. Eventually, we realised, it was just a house. And it wasn’t worth the stress, we were sick of worrying about drainage issues, termites, mould, ants…..we wanted to live, not just exist…
And so, we sold our home.
