Yesterday was, by far, one of the worst days in my adult life. I should have known that nothing ever comes easily for me -- that sometimes it seems as though I need to work 4x as hard as everyone else to achieve the same goals -- and that it was stupid to actually get excited about a pending sale of our house. Regardless as to how anxious that buyer seemed to be.
We've been so overwhelmingly busy these past few months - literally every waking hour not spent at work has been consumed with some home project or another, some meeting about the house or another, or working to find a new house. There's been very little time to enjoy anything.
Saturday, back when we had an accepted offer and a month to move, I found a last-minute sitter for the boys and our realtor and I trekked throughout an entire county (a 483 sq mile county) searching for the perfect house.
Nothin'.
The homes I saw were either extremely overpriced or in mass need of TLC. We saw TWELVE houses.
TWELVE.
Nothin'.
Not even a "maybe".
The realtor suggested we up the dollar amount in our search criteria, find a home we loved and simply make an offer of much less than their asking price. (Somewhere she, with 18+ years of experience, felt those homes should be priced to begin with.)
Sunday morning was our inspection. Nothin' like fast-trackin' everything...we'd gotten the signed accepted offer Tuesday night and got the phone call Friday night that the inspection was to be at 9 a.m. on Sunday morning. (First of all - who the hell DOES that?!? A Sunday?!? REALLY?!?) So for the umpteenth time, we cleaned the house top to bottom and left the house with tired kids to go out for breakfast.
We had no reason to think that anything BAD would come back in the inspection. There were a few little things we knew about, like a garage door that needed fixing (and we'd already scheduled someone to come over and help with its repair before getting the offer). But lo and behold...there was a deal-breaker.
Now, the way the inspector wrote it up sounds like its merely "something to watch". In two places in the basement (places, honestly, we either never used or where we stored things) there is bowing in the walls.
Jay swears the walls were always like that, and the inspector says some is normal in a home of this age. But there's no mention of it in our inspection from nine years ago. However, that being said, our realtor wonders if we were duped back then and maybe we never got one...the inspection, back in June 2000, was done a month prior to closing and we were not invited. Apparently the buyers always attend the inspection, so that they can ask questions and the inspector can show them areas of concern. Or at least this is what we're told now. Who knows...
Long story short, the buyer backed out, and we're faced with either fixing something that's really expensive (or so we think - we really have no idea) or being upfront about the issue and hoping we find a buyer who thinks its no big deal and who still wants to pay what we're asking.
We have another showing this afternoon. I'm at the point where I simply can't deal with it anymore. I've never...NEVER...been the kind of person who ignores or avoids something. I've always faced any obstacle in my life head-on, making decisions where needed regardless as to how tough they were to make. I've never been afraid to work hard - my whole life has been about working hard.
But something tells me maybe this wasn't meant to be. For some reason, I'm not meant to have the life I've always wanted...its not in the cards to have a nice home I can enjoy with my hubby and my kids...and to have a few more kids at that. It seems I'm not meant to have simple evenings at home with my boys, just chillin' out, making dinner and watching TV. I'm not meant to have a big yard, where my little boys can grow to be big boys...where they can get dirty and hurt and learn that its not a good idea to jump off the garage roof onto the trampoline.
I'm apparently doomed to this life of working Momitude. Forever.
And it really really sucks.
It flashed through my brain last night that I should just quit my job and we should stay in the damn house where we are. I'd never miss another morning with a warm-bodied cuddly two-year-old who only wants to curl his head into my shoulder while watching Sesame Street. I'd never forget to bring a snack to pre-school, or if I did, I could run to the grocery store down the street and have one back to school before snack time.
I could be the field-trip Mom. The Cub Scout Mom. A cop's pretty wife.
I even have an office in which to write.
We'd still have a teeny tiny yard, and have completely overgrown our house...
...but maybe that's better than what we're going through now.
