Saying goodbye to my house

I sold my house yesterday. It was a bittersweet event. I bought the house in 1994. I was in the midst of a divorce. So, I ended up doing the three things rated most stressful for Americans all at the same time: Divorce, buying a house and moving. Why draw the stress out I say! I just did it all at once.
It was great having a house that was mine. I got the mortgage all on my own. No one could tell me whether I could have a dog or not. On the other hand, when something broke, I couldn’t call the landlord and say, “hey can you fix the plumbing?” I discovered I’m a lousy carpenter. If you own an old house (and this one was built in the 1880s), it helps if you can at least hammer a nail. So, for me the house turned into a constant battle and I discovered I wasn’t very happy living alone. It was a very small town. I didn’t know anyone there, I didn’t really have any close friends. Sometimes I relished my independence and aloneness and other days I despaired. I spent endless summer afternoons and evenings curled up in the porch swing reading a book. I also sat on the floor crying when I came home from a business trip, found out the back door had blown open during sub zero weather and the pipes had frozen and burst in the basement causing a shower of water to gush and subsequently freeze all over everything in the basement. Thank heavens I had heeded my brother Andy’s advice and installed a shut off valve. Prior to that, to shut off the water to the house you needed an 8ft pole and the ability to move a man hole cover in the front yard.
The house is in a very small town, but it had a grocery store, a liquor store, a small restaurant and a place that delivered pizza. What more could a person need? The liquor store did not carry wine when I moved to town, but they started carrying it for me. I would walk down with my dogs and the liquor store owner would invite them in for a beef jerky. The dogs probably could have gone down and picked up the wine themselves, they loved that jerky. I almost always walked the five blocks to the grocery store and I would carry a canvas tote for my groceries, but I could never convince the grocery store owner that I didn’t need the plastic bags and the whole point of the canvas bag was to conserve. She always insisted on bagging everything in plastic and then carefully putting it in the canvas tote.
My cat Ananka wandered in off the street when I lived in that house and I adopted my dog Sparkles when I lived there. There were some great parties had there also.
But, one day a relative became ill and I moved into the relative’s house and I never went back to my house. (It’s a long and complicated story). I put my house on the market. That was six years ago. It didn’t sell the first time I had it on the market, or the second or third. Between attempts to sell it, I rented it out. If I thought I was a lousy carpenter, I was even worse at being a landlord. You need to be tough, be constantly on patrol of the property, and have the ability to get mean with renters. I was of the opinion that if I treated people fairly and gave them their own space, etc., they would treat my property nicely. I was wrong – four times. It turns out I’m a horrible judge of character. One man I let move in with one dog, ended up having a kennel with 12 dogs in a tiny back yard. It cost several thousand dollars to clean up the yard after he moved out. Another renter ignored the six page renter’s contract that said “DO NOT PAINT” the original woodwork or fixtures and painted the black slate fireplace mantel and surround purple along with purple paint for the oak window seat.
So, the house became a burden. I couldn’t sell it, I couldn’t get renters that didn’t cause headaches. Then one day, one of my employees said she was getting a divorce and was my house still for sale? It seems fated now to be the first home of strong women in the midst of divorce. So, I feel better knowing who is buying it, but still sad that I didn’t do more with it. At least I am no longer worried about what the renters are doing.