Once you get a ball rolling…….

So my Mom loved the house. My Dad appreciated the beauty of the house, and in my Dad fashion, sent an email bulleting the pros and cons. We set up an appointment with the realtor for late last night to set up an go through to talk about staging and get a firmer idea of our list price. After working out, I cam home and worked like a freak, cleaning the basement, scrubbing carpet, essentially cleaning like last night was the open house. It was silent, and being alone in my basement (that was just finished within the last year) and being alone in the kids (newly done) homework room……..I started getting sad. So much of our house has JUST come together. I started thinking about the furniture that was going to be misplaced in the other house. Started thinking about the furniture that we were going to have to have custom built IN the new house (for instance, the boys were going to share a huge room in the third floor. It being a 200 year old home, there was no closet. It being up two different super tight curved staircases, there would be no large furniture going up those stairs…..). Started feeling stressed. Met with realtor, started talking about what would need to be moved or the couple of things we would want to stage differently to show the house. My huge closet, compressed into a very cool one, but a very compact one. Hmmm. Was feeling excited, but stressed. Starting thinking about the reality of moving from one house of similar value into another of similar value yet losing so.much.money in closing costs realtor fees moving costs and hundreds of hours of staging/cleaning/showing/inspecting/packing/and re-decorating a new house. Hundreds of life hours. But, the ball was in motion the wheels were in gear and I already had visions of the kids stockings hanging on the historic mantle and whatnot dancing in my head and I just felt like this train had already pulled out of the station and we were on it.

Nate left early for 2 days of intense meetings in DC. I woke up with an anxious stomach ~ all I really wanted to do was hold a new baby and do body combat and go miniature golfing with my buddy on his day off school…..I didn't WANT to start staging and do the mortgage and submit the offer and start with inspections. And suddenly it was like this lightbulb went off.

I didn't have to do it. Any of it. The ball wasn't ROLLING, I was pushing it. The train wasn't just pulling out, I had my foot on the gas. And suddenly instead of this peaceful fall with long days where I can pretty much do what I want, pick up some more yoga teaching, or more volunteering, or devote more time to THIS house……I was going to be freaking out about every piece of paper out of place, worrying about showings, worrying about negotiating money with friends (the sellers of the house are friends of ours) …….and THEN start the real work of moving our entire family away from our perfectly loved and almost perfect home. No, we don't have a mudroom. And no, no double oven. And we aren't exactly in a neighborhood, though some of our closest friends live right next door. And I realized that if I took the money that was going to go to realtors and brokers I could totally redo the boys bedroom furniture, and BUILD a mudroom…….and not spend one hour moving or negotiating or stressing out. It was like being smacked in the face with a bucket of ice water.

I have realized that my Type A personality and desire to keep going going going invites unnecessary chaos into my life. COULD we have pulled off this move? Yes. But did we have to? No. I know that I am a black and white thinker. I've realized that that is one reason I was so drawn to and enjoyed sales. I have also realized that this creates this issue: I sell myself on something and then lose focus. I become singleminded and lose objectivity. I only see the good or the bad of a particular situation. In this case, I was neglecting to see the stress of having every single thing in the house picked up, of having to become someone who talks about antiques (I can talk myself into this different vision of a different me, one who scours craigs list and antique stores and yard sales and restoration hardware for that *perfect* piece to suit a historic home… and cultivates succulents in tin planters for the windowsills all day and wraps everything in burlap…..but I don't like doing that stuff. That isn't me.) My kids have already had 21 months of eMBA stress. A solid 6 months of stress fracture/broken hip stress. And right NOW, when I have all of this nice time to relish cooking and organizing and putting time into our almost just right home, I'm about to introduce serious sell a house buy a house move and make the kids switch schools stress? No. Fuck no.

So. I held the baby. And I played miniature golf with smalls. And coached soccer (gnats. And humid. And the girls were very 6 tonight). And we ate leftovers and its 8:30 and I'm in bed and I purposely left a load of laundry unfolded, because if the house were listed I couldn't do that. And tomorrow I won't wake up with an anxious stomach or have weird dreams about meetings.

Its strange to realize how deceiving your own mind can be. Its strange to realize how easily I can talk myself into a situation which is probably going to bring quite a fair bit of suffering, resentment, worry, and all of the decisions and fear and uncertainty that moving, especially into such a different house with such potentially different (and costly) "issues" could have attached to it. Do I have some unconscious need to prove something? Do I unconsciously try to make myself crazy busy, or create chaos for some purpose? Its not exactly like self sabotage, as I usually pull out of whatever scenario I place myself in, its like I put myself as a contestant of the gameshow "Survivor" for fun. Oh! 3 kids in three years! Okay! School? Travel? Hip? Okay! Oh! Things got easy, lets MOVE! Yeah! Its NUTS. Its like an unconscious draw towards drama and its just nuts. Its not intentional, at least not consciously. I don't like it. I've just realized it.

So. I don't know what realizing that means, other than that I should be trusted with no decisions and should be made to sit still more. Perhaps bound and gagged? Or in pigeon pose. That sounds much gentler. Maybe thats why I've always loved yoga. Maybe it slows me down……and maybe after 20 years all of the yoga is helping me finally see this pattern and say no to it. I want to live those hours, not spend them being manic and hurried and half absent to the kids. I like being slower and more intentional, just like I feel in my practice or when I teach…….not crazed and scattered like this past few days has felt making just these first decisions about this house. There are so many balls in life that are rolling that we CAN'T control. A sick kid, a job loss, bad hair. But this? I can say no to unnecessary crazy. Thank you, yoga.

Tomorrow I get to attend a 90 minute vinyasa class with Girish performing live as we practice! Follow that up with a massage at 12:30 and an afternoon with zero plans. I'm so ready.