The Journey to Sell My Family Home

So, I'm writing this mostly for me to get a lot of these things out, but also to give you some perspective. I'll start with some background. The house in the photo is the house I grew up in. I've never moved from this home as my father allowed me to live here while attending college. In August 2003, after some advice from a friend, my father and I decided to refinance this house and put it in my name since my credit rating was better. So Dad & I signed a LOT of papers, and then it was done. Ever since then I've been paying the mortgage, and working on keeping up the place which is no small feat indeed. Most houses of this size have a family in them, or at least a married couple to be able to keep up with lawn care, snow blowing, and cleaning. I've had my father, a boyfriend here or there and some roommates, but mostly it's been back to me to deal with the majority of the upkeep.

My mother left the family home back when I was in junior high school so around 1991(?), and left ALL her things except her purse. She eventually moved to North Carolina where she lives today. My father left this world on February 23, 2005. Both of my parents rarely threw things away, and as I kept on going from room to room, I realized that I too had a bit of difficulty with this as well. How many photos do you really need to keep? Why am I keeping things that I don't even use? What the hell is this? I also seemed to get overwhelmed, and then wanted to just quit. This happened many times over the years. Negative thoughts would creep into my mind like; you can't do it, the house won't sell, this will take FOREVER, etc. I started to think that this is something I need to continue to keep up. All the while, I KNOW my father would not want me to struggle, and is probably surprised how long I've stayed here without him being around anymore.

Fast forward a number of years to August 2011 when I was relieved from my almost 14 year job at Merrill Corporation (not to be confused with Merrill Lynch). I worked my way to making a substantial salary there, but at the end was entirely unhappy. I would actually cry upon driving to my job everyday, but knew I had to stay in order to keep paying this large mortgage. Now that I know that a job I love DOES actually exist, I feel a bit foolish for staying there so long, but knew it was the money that kept me there. However, now I make a SUBSTANTIALLY lower salary, and my time is truly numbered in this house.

Relationships with men have also come and gone during these times. Each one I thought, "maybe we could start a family," or "perhaps with HIS help we could make this work". However, the more time moved forward, the more I realized that this is truly not a place where I am truly happy. It's just that I've become comfortable, and that is not always good.

I have been to California now about 6 times, and each time I go it's harder to leave. It's been my dream since 2005 to move out there, and now that this dream may be coming closer to a reality it's TERRIFYING! Questions continue to flood my head like: Will I have a full-time job?, Where will I live?, Will I be able to support myself because it's so expensive there, etc. I have now aligned myself with companies that exist in this state as well, but yet I am not sure I can make enough to sustain myself. I am very thankful to my best friend for offering the opportunity to live together to make this a true possibility, but there are still so many questions.

Also, there is still so much left to be done here, and pretty much only me to deal with it. I have a lot more things to go through. More questions arise like; Is it trash?, Should I donate it?, What is this?!?, Will I be able to get this all done and get the house on the market?, How will the showings work with 3 dogs here?, How am I going to manage to keep it show clean?, etc. I keep on plugging away, but I can't help to feel totally overwhelmed right now. At the same time I'm working through all of this "stuff," I'm also working on starting over my career. I tried for a full-time position and was denied, so now it's looks like I'll be back to starting over yet again in another department, and that's SCARY. I'm not sure I'll be able to make enough money to keep me in this place long enough to sell it. I need help, and am not sure who to ask for it. I need to interview realtors, and get the deed updated, and clean out the garage attic (SCARY). Some of these things seem so HUGE and terrifying.

Apparently it's my time to embrace the feeling of "FEAR," and move through it. It's probably exactly what I need in order to move me out of this "comfort" zone house that I truly cannot afford anymore, but at the same time it's really hard to battle feelings of failure and despair. So now I will come to a close, as I need to go make more of a dent in the work that needs to be done around here. However, if you see me, and I'm not my super smiling and happy self, just know what's going on in my background and that I'm doing the best I can not to carry it around with me. I'm really not very good at hiding my emotions (something I'm working on), and that's a good & bad thing. I know we all have our own battles and stories to share with life's challenges each one in differing degrees of TOUGH, and probably most people's are even more difficult than mine. However, this one is mine, it's what I have to deal with right now, and I believe my feelings are very valid as are yours. I'll be here for you to listen & comfort you through your struggles, and now you know a little more about mine.