Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The Glass Apartment

Losing the opportunity to purchase a home that you really want is heartbreaking. Obviously. Everyone can deal with that. But it's the mental anguish over the 'what-if' that is really the most boggling concept. There are few events/times in a person's life where the infamous scenario plays on repeat. With our wedding coming up so soon, K. and I were really banking on this house being 'the one,' sending the paperwork away and returning from the honeymoon with the prospect of a new house to move into several weeks later. Now that dream is deferred.

What really sucks about the situation is that our offer wasn't just rejected, it wasn't even countered or commented upon. Instead the seller's kept the fact that they had another offer hidden from us and our realtor, they also refused to disclose to us that our offer should be a competitive one (because of that other offer), in which case K. and I probably would have offered the full asking price for the property and would have entered a bidding war. Perhaps it's a good thing that we didn't enter a bidding war, and it might be an even better thing that we didn't get suckered into the cat-and-mouse game of 'won't you offer just a bit more' from the bank, which ultimately would have tried to squeeze extra money from our bidding-war situation.

I'm upset about the situation but not nearly as mired in depression and anger as K. She has locked herself away and is refusing to speak to anyone, blaming the situation on myriad factors, some of them legitimate, others fantastical, but at the moment, rational. I suppose our minds do work this way though--trying to legitimize the otherwise irrelevant or happenstance--I surely have received a good dose of humility tonight with the surprising and saddening news. I'd like to say we'll still find a good place because there are still new ones coming on the market all the time, and obviously we'll end up with a house eventually, but the searching and waiting and struggle just to find a place that we like and that is affordable is eating away at us, and our relationship.

The wedding couldn't come at a better time, ironically enough, than at the time when our relationship is most strained. All I can hope for at the moment is for us to rally around our future endeavor into marriage and enjoy our honeymoon. Perhaps the impending nuptials will force us together at a time when we otherwise would seek our distance, and it will force us to talk and to keep working together toward our common goal.

With all of this going on in my personal life, I look upon the petty quarrels and issues of my freshmen and sigh. For those who believe that accidentally leaving behind a note professing undying love for someone is the end of the world, just wait until your mid-20s. Youth is absolutely wasted on the young and the naive, those who walk through my door everyday with no cares in the world and their hearts on their sleeves, those who sneak a quick conversation with their neighbor while I lecture on about Romeo and Juliet, a love story they can't possibly relate to--never will they encounter an enemy fixated on their ousting, never will they enter a competition for something so serious, life-altering and permanent, and never will they grasp the concept that love and tragedy can be so interdependent, so entwined and paired, so ratcheted together and commingled that all one can do is baton down the hatches of their rickety ships ambling across this treacherous sea of life, and steer and row with all their strength, wait for the storm to break, and cherish what they have.

1 comment:

  1. do I offer congrats on your marraige now, Jeff? sorry about the home. huge things to happen at once. i understand that you also deferred from the winter semeser at Lesley. How's writing?

    best wishes to you and K-

    brad

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