An Apartment: A Love Story
This article by Nora Ephron sums it up for me.
So things are winding down and I have news about my house that are going to make some of you go "There she goes again!" I wasn't going to mention it until I had to but we found an occupant for my house: My son, DIL and 2 grandsons. They are going to rent our house, covering the mortgage, until they a) move out or b) decide to buy it.
They contacted us when we told them the house was going on the market this spring. My DIL has always talked about how she loves the neighborhood and the schools. Apparently when they saw the door closing on a chance to live here, they decided to ask us if we would rent it to them for a year or two. One of the nicest things my Type A clean-freak DIL ever said to me when she explained why she wanted to move here was "The house we're in now doesn't feel like a home. Your house feels like a home."
There are a number of advantages for DH and I. He has had a very bad winter health-wise. Turns out his liver isn't doing so great. He's OK--nothing terminal, but it has been a roller coaster of specialists and tests. There have been weeks at a time when he saw a doctor or had some kind of test every business day.
So, that has really impeded our ability to aggressively fix up and pack the house the way we should if he hadn't had these issues. We still have to get rid of our stuff so they can bring their stuff, but we will be able to store overflow stuff in the basement or garage for a year or so. It makes the transition much easier for us. We are going to do a legitimate rental agreement so that all the grey areas are covered. I am praying that it works out--all the cautions going through your minds are going through mine, but there's a part of me that LOVES the idea of my son living in this house.
I know a lot of you have downsized and moved and you seemed to do it without any whining or crying. But I'm doing a little of both these days. DH in particular is feeling very regretful and sad that we're moving out. I've told him that it's inevitable. We simply don't have the money to stay--the taxes in NJ alone set us back almost $1k a month. I tell him, we love our house in VT, and we never gave our house in NJ a thought last summer. But now, as we prepare to sell the stories of our possessions, it's not easy, particularly for him it seems.
Any words of advice or support from those of you (like pinkytoe) who had to leave a home you've lived in for most of your adult life?