by Emily Caldwell, staff reporter
It can be pretty fun, looking at houses. The thrill of the possibility, the exhilaration you feel when you walk into a house and immediately notice all of the things about it that are better than your current one. I’ve never been one to binge watch House Hunters or any of those home improvement shows that come on at two o’clock in the morning, but I have to admit: walking into a brand new house and having your imagination kick into overdrive can be both terrifying and intoxicating.
My parents recently made the rather spontaneous decision that they’re no longer happy with the neighborhood we’re living in (while I, on the other hand, have found our college neighbors and their parties unappealing for years).
“I’ve come to the conclusion,” my father said suddenly one night at dinner, “that I’m no longer satisfied with living here.”
Cue the avalanche.
At first, the thrill is overwhelmingly consuming. The idea of living somewhere else dominated my thoughts for weeks. Change, at least change that doesn’t alter your life or who you are forever, is at first exciting. The hypothetical stage, as I have so fondly named it in my head, is probably my favorite stage. It’s the stage of the “what if”s and the “this could be”s and, in our case, the “hey howdy hey it’s got TWO garages”s.
In every house we have walked in to so far, my siblings have let the hypothetical stage take hold (like most children do with most stages). They begin to ceaselessly run around the house obnoxiously claiming rooms, bathrooms, kitchen table spots, and even walls. While at first I viewed their excitement as something that would eventually dilute over time, I now realize how easy it is for not only them to get caught up in the potentially bright future each house holds but also for me to become engulfed in their childish fantasies.
While their excitement may appear to be harmless, it does serve as a good transition into the next phase of this change my parents have so conveniently chosen to tackle my senior year of high school (when I need a permanent address more than ever before): the slap. The slap of the consequences, of reality. I think my sibling’s infectious optimism has begun to affect my parents in a not-so-good way. When my parents are trying to make important decisions about a house and our future there but all they can hear are my two little siblings screaming, “Nooo, this is totally my sink!” … Let’s just say they tell the kids to go explore the backyard and not come back until we’re ready to go to the next house. And where am I in all of this? Quietly watching, not doing much to help either party. The truth is, I don’t really know what to do myself.
The slap is (hence my not so affectionate naming) my least favorite stage. It’s the stage that hits me the hardest. I usually retreat into my ridiculously unrealistic concerns and think and think and think some more: “Will I actually be able to fit in this shower? The head doesn’t look high enough.” “Where will all my letters and mail and packages go? Will the new people just throw them away?” “What if my friends won’t even want to come over because our new house will be so far out?” While I know and have been told repeatedly that this retreat into myself is a bad habit that needs to be broken, sometimes it’s the only way I can think clearly. Sometimes, the only way to really know is to be slapped in the face with what you don’t.
This process, the art of buying a house (as a family, I should add), is definitely a bigger and stronger opponent than I anticipated. I don’t really know what comes next, in terms of our actual future and of the stages of our change. Hopefully, whatever it is, it comes before I have to pack up all my stuff again and tackle the biggest change I will ever have to face: college.
