Partial victory, and a triumph of the will

We sold our house, Friday.

It was awful and acrimonious and the would-be condo tycoons tried to ruin our Christmas, but we held fast, and sure enough, on January 4--yeah, right after the holiday--they offered to give us 'one more chance.' Pynchon reminded them that they, and not us, had walked away from negotiations, in no uncertain terms, and in terms, indeed, that seemed manipulative and cruel.

A representative from the city acted as mediator.

Pynchon went to the negotiation without me; I was far to angry and scared and righteous. We did a lot of homework and prepared reams of paper backing up our position and showing Those Jackasses to be manipulative liars. I will spare you the details of what, even with a third party observer, was a petty and argumentative process.

I will tell you, though, that the offer we accepted is quite likely to buy us a home on a par with our current one, on a more desirable (ie, quieter, more kid-friendly) street in our same neighbourhood. I will tell you that it is significantly higher than the offer they made in December, and that we got a higher settlement than our neighbours who chose to put themselves out of their misery before Christmas. I will also tell you Condo Jerks were so ill-willed about it that they removed the clause from the contract that set out to pay our moving expenses. Did we get more than the house would have fetched on the 'open market'? Yes, we did. Did we get a price that reflects the value of this property as part of the package for redevelopment? Probably not.

Too frazzled to work that afternoon, I sprung Munchkin early from daycare, and met Pynchon for a celebratory? consolatory? sugary treat at Starbucks, as, dazed, we tried to figure out whether we were happy or not. The process left a very bad taste in Pynchon's mouth, and he hated to do anything to make Those Bastards happy. I never wanted to move at all, and was trying to find a way to see the sale--at any price--as a victory.

We sat. Munchkin ate an entire oat bar, and helped Tiger, Boy, and Hippo 'sip' from Mommy's latte. Pynchon swirled the straw around his Iced Grande Passion Tea, listening with eyes downcast as I tried to rationalize it. Did we do the right thing? We did the right thing. We did. Didn't we?

As we sat there, it became clearer and clearer that what mattered was that, as a family, we were going to be okay: we can now afford another house, we won't have to worry about the high speed bus line, or the student rental across the street (although we might miss the new couple we've been trying to arrange a wine-drinking evening with, and we will miss Bill and Helen); we will stay in our neighbourhood, running into Munchkin's daycare classmates at the grocery store, all my colleagues at the liquor store, the regulars at Starbucks.

We're going to be okay. Maybe even better than just okay, maybe with a similar sized house on a larger lot with an actual backyard and no need to wear earplugs to block out the whizzing, constantly whizzing, traffic.

I took this picture when we moved in. I was in love. Writing this post, and pulling together the links, I was startled to see how much of this blog centres on my house and my neighbourhood, how much my place is my life. But now? Even still? I'm starting to think, tentatively, of moving on.