"A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest,
remembers it most obsessively,
wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it,
loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image."
- Joan Didion
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| May 30th, 2018 |
Two short years ago when I took that picture, I wasn't really thinking about the future or what it had in store for me. I wasn't really thinking about being excited for the future, either, because truth be told I had just finished crying over the fear I'd made a colossal mistake in signing my name like 800 times and adding $180,000 to my debt. But the smile doesn't show that, or at least, I hope it doesn't.
That smile shows pride in one thing only: lookie what I did.
Because I'd done something huge! I bought a god damn house! And I did it on my own credit, of my own volition, regardless of fact I had destroyed my life with credit card debt as a teenager and being flippant with money ever since. I bought a house and I didn't need someone to do it with me for their support or a secondary income or any of that stuff. Sure it was a Crayola house of colors that looked like a witch had been living inside, but who cares? I owned it.
Side note: the girl a few houses down stopped by this summer when I was working on the patio in the back yard and had left the gate door open. She came in and said that she hadn't been in this backyard since she was a little girl (back in like 2003) and SHE said that they always thought a witch lived here. The lady had a whole bunch of bat houses in the backyard, so there! Proof is in the pudding and it WAS a witch house! This made me love it all the more, because witches are the shit and I'm down with a spooky vibe.
This also explains why I kept getting bats in the house.
When I moved in, I was still a little bit bitter over how my last relationship had ended (hey! full circle!) but I was so excited to finally have a place to call my own. I was gonna be entertaining all the time (...) and having people visit and stay in the guest room (...) and do all the things that make a house a home. I had no idea where I was supposed to start, or how I was supposed to do it, because everything was so insanely daunting. I assume you've painted a room before, yes? Gotta get the painters tape, carefully do the trim, put your drop-cloths or plastic tarps down and then go, right?
Have you ever painted every single room in your house?
How about the ceilings?
How about the trim? The doors? Windows? Re-stain the floors? Replace all the lights? The outlets and switch plates? Did you repaint the outside, redo the porch, build a new deck, pour your own concrete pavers and patio? Probably not.
Also I'm a goal driven and over achieving Capricorn, so big fuckin' surprise there.
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| May 30th, 2019 |
I didn't do it all by the time this picture was taken, mimicking the shot from the day I bought the house and in the same outfit a year later. Here, I had only finished the interior, sans the floors and closets. I'd also finished painting the front and side of the house, but whatever. On the one year anniversary of owning the Manor, I met the third great love of my life. He had read the four blogs I posted around my renovation, and reached out on a whim because he was so impressed by the hardwork and determination I had shown. This is where the story turns...
PSYCH!
Think I'd waste my goodbye blog to the Manor talking about the fuckhead that left me high and dry at the drop of a dime, right before the pandemic ruined 2020? Get real. I'm a whiner, not a masochist.
By the end of the first year, I'd really not entertained much. I had a few get-togethers, but nothing huge and I always wanted to do more. And I meant to do more... just didn't get around to it. As for people visiting, I had more visitors in my first few months at the Manor than all of the second year combined, so make of that what you will. No hard feelings of course, it just is what it is. My hopes of what I was gonna get out of the house had waned by then.
My second year was really spent finishing the paint job outside, working on the garage, then the massive undertaking of refinishing the floors over winter. What lesson did I learn from that, you're asking so loudly right now? Well, I'll tell ya! NEVER stain your floors dark if you a) have pets, b) live in the house, c) plan to walk on them ever with shoes on, d) all of the above. Keeping the floors clean was such a headache and damn near impossible, and eventually I just said "fuck it" and let them be. In 2020 no one was really coming around so who gave a shit anyway.
During quarantine, my amazing neighbors Jake and Allison and their little boy Fitz sold their home and moved about 20 minutes south. I was happy for them and sad for me... it's not often you take the risk of buying your first house and end up with utterly amazing neighbors. That was the first hit.
Then the dreaded project outside commenced once spring and summer hit. Landscaping was the last great obstacle for the Manor and I knew it was going to take my entire attention in order to get it done. After a few passes of tilling the front yard, the grass seed went down. Then there was edging to put in, and plants, and lots of watering in between. Then came the pavers... and the patio... and the walkway. By early July I was just about done outside, but my ambition had waned.
This summer I just hit the wall. I wasn't happy in many aspects of my life in general, and the noisy street with its constant thumping music and block parties and gunshots and fireworks... it was too much. And it made me start to resent the house... and though the blog isn't about 'ol fuckhead back in WI, after he left, it made me think differently of my house as well. So many memories here were with him, and it just turned what was once such a positive into something remarkably negative.
Staying here when the weather cooled off was a terrifying thought, and that's the honest truth. I can only liken it to PTSD. Facing another winter alone, with those memories and no projects to distract me? I had to get out.
I reached out to my friend Chad, and by the end of July the house was on the market, and three days later it was sold.
It took a lot out of me to pack the house up, which was odd because I'm usually pretty gung-ho around that kind of stuff. Whenever I'd be in the house doing it, I would get motion sick and tired, or my stomach would be turning and I'd have to lay down. And it went on, this despite never being sick during the day... and always feeling better when I was away from the house. Make of that what you will. More on it later.
After some feverish hunting, I found a new home. There was a mix-up with my closing dates though and I am living in a temporary apartment in between. I told myself that this was a good thing though, because what was it I keep saying about 2020? It's the universe telling us to slow down. This mixup was telling me that I needed to stop being in such a rush, that I needed to scale myself back and just observe. Process everything that has happened, everything that will soon be happening, and move forward calmly and with purpose. This is easier said than done, but gentle reminders are nary a bad thing.
That brings us to today. The movers came the other day and packed my life into a truck, save for a broom, vacuum and a dust mop so I could do a final clean of the house. But when the floors have been swept and the stairs vacuumed, the mirrors cleaned and all but one of the lights shut off... I didn't know what else to do. I looked around at the walls that sheltered me for a time. The walls I had poured my blood, sweat and tears into restoring and bringing to life. What now?
So I sat down, in the same outfit I wore the day I bought the Manor, and I took one final selfie. We go out as we came in.
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| September 17th, 2020 |
Looking back on it, the sense of gratitude I have for the Manor is overwhelming. I sit here in the empty living room, and the sounds of my keystrokes echo off the walls and reverberate through me. Noteworthy, because for a time, an author did live here. It's quiet outside right now, a rarity on this street, but one I am very grateful for right now. I've got a little music playing, and while I'm happy... I've got this underlying sadness as the minutes approach to saying goodbye.
Houses are living things, aren't they? They take care of us in every meaning of the word. They keep us warm in the winter, shelter us from the storms, and fill us with their light as they retain our memories. I like to think of houses as the great keepers of secrets, standing sentries to guard and protect them. In a way they do the same with us... the Manor has to me.
Passing that baton along to the next owner is heartbreaking in its finality.
There are a number of things I'll miss about this place, don't ever confuse that of me. How the window frames seemed to glow when they were hit by direct sunlight. The gale-force rush of air from the furnace vents. The way the wood of the giant oak tree outside smells after it has rained... just the giant oak tree in general. The creak of the floorboards and the height of all the wood trim. I'll miss the light here in general, as I always found it healing and plentiful. I'll miss the matured trees of the street and the history of having the oldest house on it. I will miss the stories I learned about the Manor as I meticulously brought it back from the edge. The halls and how narrow they were, the stairwell and the energy of the spirits that still occupy it.
Oh yes, that's right. I've never talked about the ghosts. Well you'll have to wait for Halloween, I'm afraid, to hear about the spirits. Specifically how active they were this week. I assume it's because they knew I was leaving, but I digress. That story is for another time. Rest assured I was living in the Poltergeist house.
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| Hello and goodbye |
I love that quote by Joan Didion at the top of this... about remaking a home in your image and that it belongs forever to the person who does so? That was me with the Manor. I claimed it as my own, did the work, and the result is that it will always be mine. Just as I will always belong to it, in a strange, woo-woo sort of way. There it is.
But now it's time for me to go. It's time to turn off that final light, take the key from my ring, and set it on the counter. I didn't imagine things ending so quickly here, but I am forever grateful for the lessons. Good and bad. I loved the Manor for a time... and as has happened with all three of my relationships, I fell out of love, too. I look back with fondness for the past, glamorizing it in a way I have become adept at. But I need to say goodbye. To some of the memories, to some of the lessons, and to a lot of the heartbreak. We can only do what we're meant to do, right? I'm meant to leave.
Ciao for now gang.
