The Emotional “How”
The conversation always begins, “What made you decide to do
that?” The topic in question being a
move from suburbs to city. Truth be told, the move had yet to occur, but the
financial commitment was complete, and the emotional vow in process.
My husband and I had been attending a cocktail party for a
councilman running for re-election when we were asked THE question. We had introduced
ourselves with the moniker, “moving from the outer ring to the city…”
Thus the question from the councilman, “What made you decide
to do that?”
We glanced at each other, then Mark gestured to me, “It’s
your turn.” This time, my words would shape the story. I hit the highlights, sharing the sequence of
events in bullet points, as opposed to my husband’s more verbose style:
- · Blended marriage
- · Bored one Saturday, snow cancelled kid’s events
- · Read about new condos in Gateway Quarter
- · Learned Gateway Quarter a rebranding of OTR
- · Took condo tour, drank free coffee
- · Realized we had four kids, extended families, condos wouldn’t work
- · Read about a builder developing single family homes in OTR
- · Walked about with said builder in OTR
- · Builder revealed hidden gem on Race
- · Toured home - no heat, electric, windows or walls, empty for 40 years.
- · Discussed once on drive home
- · Sold
I finished spouting off my list, but the story was
incomplete. I had left out the emotional “How”. How does one make this
decision, moreover, how do two?
How can one foresee two years into the future, amidst
abandoned buildings that had yet to house anything but rats?
How does one make this decision to uproot a lifestyle,
albeit for possibly a more active one, though our kids might disagree because
the boy says we are never home?
How does one respond to a father who feels some sadness
because he and his son might not lunch as often?
How does one tell current neighbors we are moving away, to
initiate a new lifestyle? We want to live in the vibrancy of the city. We don’t
want to age in place, that is grow old standing still.
How could anyone understand that this project has been our
love child? I brought a boy, he brought three girls, we were two shy of a Brady
Bunch marriage, but opted against procreating anymore. Four was enough. When
the biological clock tick, tocked, we bought, instead of birthed.
How could one feel what excitement we would have selecting
an Italian range hood and reliable refrigerator, imposing our genes on our
selections? He liked blue, I liked the purple and orange. He wanted new, I wanted to save everything.
How could one predict, over the many months of gestation,
the home would become something we loved together? We paid homage to its olds ghosts and made
accommodations for future guests. Its shell of rafters and 2x4s became the empty
slate on which we would write our experiences, overtop layers of plaster, drywall,
brick and wood.
As we progressed through the process, the decisions became
part smarts, part signs, again an imposition of our dispositions on the re-birthing
of this home.
I will never wholly grasp this decision and its future
implications. In the same way, we never
fully know our children, but are willing to share them with the next generation.
