How do you know when to risk it all?
Or at least some of it? Last night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for the, oh I don’t know, 14th night in a row, I tried to apply some self help stuff to my current situation. My current situation is: I’ve found a house to buy, but I just started a fairly expensive lease on a house ( let’s call it an “apartment” for clarity’s sake). The ideal of course would be to get the apartment leased to some other sucker someone else, which is exactly what I’m trying to do. But to no avail. The leasing market seems to have collapsed and there’s a glut of overpriced product. So I’m faced with either pulling out of buying my dream house, or buying it and being up to about $15,000 in debt for rest of the lease which has 10 months left on it.
I knew I was taking a risk when I put the offer on the house. And I would not be in this situation if the apartment had not been cleaned properly and painted and baby roaches hadn’t been crawling on my towel after a shower. I would not have looked. I did not expect to want a house as badly as I seem to now. Maybe it’s misplaced anger about the apartment and my desire to escape it that compels me to take this risk. But as I was thinking about how I could escape this apartment it occurred to me that I didn’t want to move anymore, that the weird little city of Austin was home.
I’ve been running away from home for 25 years, the idea of home more accurately. The idea of being stuck with rules and fears of doing anything that might bring any negative attention, which is everything by the way. I was not beaten, I wasn’t abused. It just stifling. And it was my goal to get out, and not live by those rules and fears.
So I’ve found the perfect house to buy in Austin, but I’m stuck in an apartment, with no renters in sight. These two things are driving me insane. Actually it’s not those things driving me insane. It’s me driving me insane. When I think about buying the house I assume, naturally, that the second I buy it, there will be another housing crash and it will be worth half as much as when I bought it. Or I think, logically, what if the neighborhood goes down and I have to barricade myself in my home because of the violence and lawlessness outside my door. How would I survive, alone. In my head it’s all very Mad Max, with gang members in mohawked plumage (Is there anything scarier than an angry person with a mohawk running toward you? As soon as you see them, you have to know they’re used to making bad decisions). I could easily have thought of any inner city in decline in the Crack 80s, but no. The images my mind came up with are Mel Gibson raging across the Australian desert fighting off crazed survivors of the apocalypse.
Buying my (now) dream house is the smaller of the two fears. Getting the apartment leased is really the Big Fear. What happens if I don’t get it leased by the time I buy the house? I can’t afford the mortgage and the rent. What will happen? I imagine police coming to my new house to arrest me for breaking the lease, theft really, robbing my landlord of thousands of dollars; the once beautiful house falling almost immediately into disrepair because every extra cent I have is spent paying the rent; working multiple, low wage jobs to pay for the apartment years after I bought the still unfurnished house; and years, nay, decades later I still have credit card debt from this one lone, perhaps impulsive decision.
You can not top me when it comes to thinking the worst! I’m willing to bet money on that. It’s this constant turning over of ideas about the worst case scenario that drives me nuts, each repetition containing more ruin and humiliation. I’m aware of these thoughts, don’t get me wrong. I stop them. I breath. I even laugh at them because they’re so completely ridiculous. Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome. Seriously? For crying out loud Tina Turner was in that.
But then I come back to the choices I’m making and I start to question them. Why do I want this house? Why now? There will be other houses for sale in a year, maybe even a $8000 tax credit as well. Why can’t I just wait?
And here’s what I answer: For the first time in my life I want to call a place home. That’s groundbreaking. And on the last day of my 10 Day Option Period, that’s what’s making me go forward with buying my dream house.
