HOUSE
19 September 2026, 12:07
I bought a house. And. A big giant pile of uncertainty. After all of the upheaval this year, though its really not done heaving yet, so I guess after the BIGGEST PART of the heaving was done, I ended up with something many people never have. Options. I was now rich with resources and a tangled ball in my head.
Feelings – fears, anger, deep sadness, a lot of confusion. I’m not sure what I’m doing, if I’m doing it right, or even if there is a right. I changed a LOT of things this year – some that had to happen, some that were now able to happen. One of the fears is that I would fritter away my new wealth. I went crazy with the investing and planning and whatnot. One of the options open to me were buying my own home.
The funny thing about options and limits. Having harsh limits is almost comforting and freeing. You are within some very defined country, you know what you can do, what you can’t do – there aren’t very many paths to take, so getting lost is hardly a possibility. There is so much less uncertainty when your path is so well defined. Options expand your universe and present you with so many more ways to fail and fall. So many path that you could get lost down, and the very real possibilities of never finding your way out. The fear of the unknown and making the wrong move in me has grown as big as the sun and I don’t know how to shrink it back down to a manageable size.
It’s been two decades since I owned a house. That was great, and then it was bad. I got to spend a total of about 10 months in it – the first five I lived there with Ken until he died in the bathroom and five more alone. It was small with a big back yard. I had started to decorate it the way I dreamed of and I had my dogs and Ken. Until I didn’t. Options. I had options before the house. I had a totally different set when I didn’t. Life changed so wildly after that, and I’m not entirely sure I was living with purpose and direction. I may have just took shots in the dark and let emotions and whims guide me in making some decisions I shouldn’t, some that were surprising, some that were brilliant, and some that were deeply bad.
I took big swings, I fail spectacularly in so many ways, I did a few good things and I ended up here.
We could talk about what I think about the sudden wealth and what it means, but that’s a totally other giant therapy session, so we’ll stick with this.
I had enough to buy almost anyting I wanted. It wasn’t as freeing or as crazy exciting as you might have thought it might be. I was going into this while trying to navigate the end of an eight-year relationship and I was drowning in the emotional turmoil of two people and the uncertainty of life in general, and more than a few drunken excavations of my brain, Jungian style with my little AI robot buddy. This was starting over again. The things I found that I really wanted was a small house, something that made me safe and cocooned with a large expanse of land. I really wanted some privacy. After living in the sticks for 10 years where the neighbors were a good distance away, I came to value being invisible. And I came to understand that I value peace and aloneness. It’s been a long time since I truly felt alone (not lonely) but alone. Where there was peace around me, nothing was needed or wanted from me, there wasn’t something or someone I was in service of and there wasn’t some timeline of which I needed to keep.
I had a number of people, a small army really, that kept me and money on track, got me the best deal and the best house that I could have asked for, and kept me from just giving all my money blindly because I felt insecure and unsafe. Apparently the dumbest thing you can do is pay outright for a house. There was a lot of talk about making my money work for me, and investing and blah blah blah. I worried about sink holes, trees falling on my house, ghosts, the house spontaneously blowing up and lead paint. There was more than one moment, I thought about taking all the money and just becoming a drunk boat captain ubering rich folk from island to island. That 20-year old fantasy suddenly was a boat dealership and some youtube sailing videos away. Then the stark panic of having enormous amounts of cash leaving my account gave me heart palpitations. Every ill advised and fantastical fear seemed to be at hand. Plus the other real world things I was going through just made it all like (the best quote from a movie ever) riding a psychotic horse through a a burning stable.
I went through all the paperwork at light speed, and all the things I wanted were there. It was the second house I ever looked at, and I began to wonder if I was moving too fast, reaching too far. I have a stomach full of anxiety and it hasn’t gone away yet. The house is a basically great little house – I didn’t want something from Good Housekeeping or Architectural Digest. The thing has personality and character, and the flaws are fixable or bearable. A cozy cottage sitting on an acre, tucked in the back of a small, safe neighborhood on an empty cul de sac.
I am six days from sitting alone in an empty living room, possibly bawling my eyes out. Truthfully, I am frightened to death about this change, and about a million other things in my life right now. And out of the million things I have to deal with and decide, this will be one decision that is a done deal. Doesn’t make the anxiety go away. Possibly it will be adding a boatload more on to my shoulders. But. In a week. Done deal.
I think I missed my window for taking the money and dogs and going to Cabo.
