Sunday, April 17, 2005

Heads you win, tails I lose

What would you do?
You spent $78,000 getting this far and you own nothing and have no "legal" right to anything. Would you walk away?
Would you say "Oh, shucks, there will be other houses" or "Hey, no big deal".
You have just put your family through 2 1/2 years of disruption and moved from rental to rental, each time thinking it is the last move and each time thinking that your (now) three year old daughter doesn't notice the strain or feel the stress.

The good part of this whole story is that my family are now permanantly settled in a lovely 1960's traditional kiwi house that we found late in 04 and moved into in Jan of 05. It has everything we always wanted from the "one that got away" and we are happy. Me, I am still full of rage under the surface for how our lives were screwed with by people who never had any respect for anything but how to save their own sorry butts from their incompetence.

We had to fight on. We had to put in that second offer for what we rightfully considered "our" house. We had stood on that patch of dirt for over 2 1/2 years at that point and I damn well felt it had my name on it.

The effect on Ms Reasonable (my 3 year old) has manifested itself in her compulsive collecting and stockpiling of anything from plastic packaging to stones for the simple reason "she doesn't want to lose them because she might never see them again". Its as if she can feel that we lost something valuable to us and she is unsettled but doesn't know why. She has boxes full of paper, twigs and strange items that we can't throw away as she knows where absolutely everything is. We are gradually throwing things away as we feel we can. Her boxes are precious to her and I am sometimes not always sensitive to her desire to keep the wrappers from McDonalds toys....

4 comments:

  1. It's amazing how much children pick up on. We were pretty crazy when ou oldest was born - very stressed adn alarmed at having a baby. None of our friends had any children and to add to it all we had moved to Petone. Finn was and still is a very sensitive boy. It is hard to know what part nature vs nurture, but I suspect it has a lot to do with our stress levels at the time.

    Malo our youngest is the most chilled out boy you've ever met.

    I love 60s houses, and we've been trying very hard lately to buy one with a view of the sea. I'm pleased you've found one after all your crap deals.

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  2. We have the same. Our second is dreamy and content also. Put her in a corner, give her a pen and and empty bottle and she is happy for days.....just comes out foraging for food every now and again.
    We love this house so much and have vowed never to leave this little plot. The harbour is ever changing and days like Sunday get me all religious about creation....and the last time I was at church was my wedding 10 years ago! Holy cow, batman, there must be a God to make Wellington so cool.

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  3. Then who is responsible for making Tawa?

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  4. Yikes, good point. You can't have one without the other: Yin/Yang, Light/Dark, coffee drinkers/tea drinkers....

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