More than a sign

I shared the 2019 photo up top as a Facebook “Memory” back in 2020, because apparently it wasn’t presented to me as a “Memory that year. As it happens, I have no idea whether FB served this up to me as a “Memory” on Christmas Day this year, either: I barely even saw FB that day (I was too busy having fun with the fam). The thing is, I don’t have all that many—any?—happy photos of me from late 2019, so here’s one.

Coincidentally, four years ago today was two weeks until settlement (similar to closing in the USA) when I got the keys to the house, and things for my new reality really started moving. I apparently didn’t mention that fact in 2020.

My offer to purchase my house went unconditional on December 10, 2019, with settlement scheduled for January 24. I quickly realised I had no reason to wait, and the quicker we settled, the sooner I could shift to Hamilton, and that meant the house stagers could get in to prepare the old house for sale.

So, I had my solicitor ask the seller’s solicitor if we could move settlement up by two weeks, to January 10, 2020 and they agreed. The only potential problem was that Hamilton City Council hadn’t yet issued their Code Compliance Certificate, which has to be in place for a new house to be occupied, but that came through the week before settlement.

We settled on time, on January 10, and then my brother-in-law Terry coordinated installation of a heat pump in the main bedroom and all my data cabling (he’s really good at that sort of coordinating, and it was a HUGE help). I shifted out of the old house on my birthday (a dumb idea under the best of circumstances, and mine weren’t that…), and into the new house the next day, January 22.

There were a lot more twists and turns in the tale, and even now, four years later, my house is still not done—and I couldn’t possibly care less. My most important job wasn’t this house or anything in it, it was only ever about working on and caring for and healing myself. That’s been a much bigger job than simply moving into any house, of course.

But that Christmas Day four years ago, standing in front of that “sold” sign, I felt the first teeny, tiny glimmer of happiness—or, at least, what might one day become happiness. That’s more than reason enough to celebrate a photo I never wanted to have: Me, standing alone in front of the sign for a house I was moving into alone. And yet, it also symbolises the triumph of human optimism, even without feeling optimistic, and also that even the worst possible thing might yet turn out okay. Hope, I’ve learned, is a powerful thing. That day four years ago, hope was beginning to be restored to me, too.

Footnotes: As near as I can (easily) tell, I haven’t shared the photo on my blog before, and I have no idea why not. I edited this photo to improve it, such as, I cropped it more tightly than the original, lightened it (it was a very dark and dismal day at that point and threatening rain), that sort of thing. While I didn’t share the photo here, I did talk about going to the house that day in a December 27, 2019 blog post recapping my Christmas that year. I also published a post on December 10, 2019 in which I announced I’d officially bought my house. That post talks in a little more detail about how the sale/purchase of houses goes in New Zealand.