November 2014
It has been a whirlwind of a year. In February, I started a new job after 5 years at home with my sons. Despite the fact that it was 2 hours away, I took the job for many reasons, the most significant being that it was part time with full benefits on a college campus with access to all the world’s libraries. By May, I was completely burned out on the commute and looking to move closer. However, with my fortieth birthday looming, I also began thinking about what I really wanted my life to look like. That’s when I concluded that I was tired of living in the suburb of a large city and commuting hours of my life away. My current commute might be two hours, but my other alternative was drive an hour and a half through traffic into downtown Austin. Blech! I started thinking how nice it would be to live somewhere with the basic staples–job, groceries, doctor’s office, community–within an easy distance. No more driving 20 minutes through congested traffic to the grocery store! No more doctor’s appointments 45 minutes away! No more worrying about how much further I can go before stopping for gas!
After talking with my husband about what I wanted our lives to look like, I watched the idea hit the floor with a thud and roll under the couch. He just wasn’t interested. He halfheartedly applied and interviewed for a job at the university where I worked, but he wasn’t enthusiastic and I spent the rest of the summer wondering how we could shape the life I so desperately wanted. Then, out of the dark, my husband received a job offer at the university where I work, and to my amazement, he accepted. After submitting his resignation, we went to work preparing our Austin home for sale. We only had three weeks, and, after submitting his resignation, his director refused to let Mark take time off to move, so we had to push through in the evenings and weekends. We wanted to list our house by Labor Day weekend in hopes of catching the last rush of summer sales. By the time our home hit the market, we were completely exhausted and overwhelmed. We simply couldn’t do any more.
I think it is safe to say that I lost hope our home would sell in the fall by the second week. While we were seeing enthusiastic response on the internet, people weren’t visiting our house. We watched as both our neighbors sold their homes within weeks of listing while our home languished on the market. We didn’t understand why until six weeks later. Our well-meaning realtor advised us not to accept FHA or VA loans because such loans required “expensive” repairs to the home. We didn’t even know what “expensive” repair our home might need, except perhaps a new roof, but she was the expert and we naively took her advice. It wasn’t until our neighbor’s house sold with a FHA loan that we realized our mistake. By then, it was too late. The internet traffic had dropped below 100 views per week and no one was coming to see our home. We needed to reset our home sale and try again in the spring. So, at the end of October, we pulled our listing.
Living in Muddled Class America 