Not ready to give up the house

View from front of my house

From time to time and more and more, people ask me when I'm going to sell my house.

It's OK to ask; it's obviously a reasonable question. But I could do without this unsolicited advice that I've also heard: "You should sell the house and buy a condo."

My answers include, "I'm not ready," "I don't want to talk about that now," and "When I stop having nightmares that I've sold the house and am looking at it from the outside in and wishing that I still lived there and realizing that I made a big mistake."

I wonder if that nightmare ever goes away

Recently a friend told me that he was dreading it, that he cried when he left...and that he never looked back.

So you never know.

I was thinking about this when doing battle with the weeds in my front garden this morning and pondering the existential question: "Why do weeds grow so quickly?"

Any semblance that I had of my New York manicure was gone by the time I finished. I start out wearing gloves, but I could only really dislodge the roots by digging my fingers into the ground. I did the front row first (back-asswords) and then did my best to hop over and balance in the back without toppling over.

I remembered when I wasn't even allowed to weed due to fungus lurking in the dirt. Pulling out a weed is the probable culprit in the aspergillus that I got back in 2003, necessitating lung surgery to remove a fungal ball before I could get my first transplant.

I remembered that towards the end of the last year of restrictions after my fourth transplant six years ago, I walked into the garden to help Katie as she pulled out weeds. She got upset with me and said I better call Melissa. I did that and Melissa said to get out of there right now.

Well, being immune suppressed was an excuse to not do it, but I am happier where I am.

Bending over did, however, hurt my back, and as I leaned against the house to rest and looked out at the scene that is pictured with this post, I thought, "Definitely not ready."