For the first time in my life, I’ve moved to a new home.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve lived in the same house, the house I grew up in, which was also the house my mother grew up in. I have a picture of it from 1940, in the same set as one with my grandparents with their children, including my mother at three.

We kept Mum at the house for as long as we could, but eventually she needed more attention than we could give her, even with hired aides. So I’ve been rattling around the house by myself for the past couple of years. It just wasn’t the same.

It took a while to figure out what I wanted to do with myself. A year ago, I was leaning towards moving on. But I wasn’t ready to make the move, and when Christmas came around, I liked maintaining the traditions of having everyone at the house.

I was also not thrilled with the idea of moving. I have a lot of crap, most of it all over the place, and I didn’t want to deal with uprooting myself. I’ve also felt very strongly that I wanted to keep the house in the family.

But the house is owned jointly by myself and my siblings, and it wasn’t fair to them to just coast on as I had been. And Brian, in particular, was pressing for a decision.

So I started looking at apartments. I was looking for two bedrooms, so that I could have a dedicated place to work. I was also looking for a place that had space for my toys — I have both a kayak and a motorcycle. I wasn’t finding much in the price range I was looking at.

So I kind of oozed into the decision to buy the house for myself. The trouble is, the house needs a lot of repairs. The kitchen is old, and the floor is coming up, The bathroom tiles are cracked. I figured I’d need to get a roommate to help defray expenses, but I was kind of OK with that — I’d go days without having anyone to speak to.

But, I found I wasn’t thrilled with that. So, trying to come to a decision,I started looking at open houses, and the very first place I saw, a condo on the Stoughton/Canton line, I could see myself living in. Nice space, bright, modern appliances. It threw me a little as there was very little outside space. I looked at a couple others that weekend, but nothing seemed to fit as well.

The following week, I started the process of looking in earnest. I got in touch with a buyers agent, Kristen Sylvia, and made arrangements to see the condo again — I wasn’t sure of my first reaction, and I wanted another look. I also talked to my financial advisor — could I even be thinking of buying a place? He reassured me. I also started talking to lenders, and got my pre-approvals lined up.

Unfortunately, the condo sold before I could take another look. So I started the process of looking at listing and visiting places. I saw a couple of real pits, and one place that was almost adequate, but seemed to be compromised in a lot of ways.

A week or so afterwards, a couple more units in the same complex opened up. This was hopeful… and also a little suspicious. One of the lenders I’d spoken to had cautioned me that there could be problems with some condo complexes, and when I asked about that one, indeed, there was a litigation cloud hanging over it. So I scratched that from the list.

The lead I was looking for came from my brother in California, of all places. He found a listing on Zillow for a condo that seemed to check all my boxes — room for an offfice, room for my toys, modern appliances, and a condo — I realized over the summer, I was getting tired of spending my weekends on maintenance,.

So I took a look at it, and it was really promising. Two story townhouse, in really good shape, with half of a two car garage. Two bedrooms, a half bath on the ground floor and a bathroom complex on the second floor with laundry. We made an offer, for a little over the asking price… and heard nothing.

Next, I noticed that they were having a second open house the following weekend. Not good. I mentally started backing down from this place. Over the weekend, the listing was updated to read “Multiple offer situation”, but nothing had been said to us. Come Monday, still no news, Kristin was getting very frustrated with the seller’s agent’s lack of communication.

Finally, on Tuesday evening, the sellers agent sent out a general email to everyone who had made an offer (there were 10) that they had accepted another offer. So much for that.

Except the next morning, as I was eating breakfast, Kristen texted me back — the winning offer had fallen through. The sellers were going to choose between the next two offers, one of which was mine. We sweetened it just a little, and they went with it.

Kristen was great to deal with. She arranged for a home inspector to check out the place — he found a lot of minor homeowner “honey-do” type items, but nothing serious — and also connected me with a real estate attorney to deal with getting the contracts in order. I kept waiting for Murphy’s Law to rear its head, but it never did.

I spent the next few weeks finalizing the paperwork, and starting to pack, and closed September 18th.

The old house has been the center if the family for ages — Mum liked to entertain, and it had been the family place for Christmas Eve for decades. So Karen and I both wanted to have one last party for the extended family there. Complicating matters, Brian was also moving, and had limited availability to help me move. So we had the family party on Saturday, September 21 and a U-Haul rented for the furniture the next day. I spent the couple of days before hand getting the kitchen set up and moving some books and photos over. I was officially in residence at the end of the day on Sunday. Sort of.

I’d bought a new desk for the office, and it took longer to put together than anticipated — the office was a disaster zone for the first week, as was the bedroom, with a couple of wardrobes to unpack. There was also a ton of stuff left over at the old place that I needed to bring over, bit by bit– I did a poor job of packing up my personal stuff, and there was a fair amount of stuff in the cellar that needed to come over. I took the seats out of the back of the car several weeks ago (I love my Element) and I still haven’t been able to put them back. I finally feel, though, that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This weekend was the first one in a long time that I felt like I could take time off; I ended up going for a long trip on the Charles this afternoon. I have some remaining Christmas stuff, and possibly a stereo, and then my car can become a four-seater again.

So, how am I feeling about it? Surprisingly OK, considering I’d spent my whole life in the old place. There was definitely a time a couple of years back when I would have been a lot more upset, and I suspect there may be waterworks when we actually sell it. I’d hoped one of the younger relatives could have taken it and kept it in the family. But I’ve spent the past couple of years kind of backing away from the old place. And I really like this place, and I love that it’s mine.