The Real Estate Sign on my Heart
On short notice I did something brave last year. I moved by myself (well along with my two fur babies) to a town where I really didn’t know anyone.
The move meant selling a house that I had built and where I had lived longer than anywhere else in my life. I am sentimental and get attached to things, not because the item itself is the value but rather the memories associated with it. One of the reasons it is hard for me to clean out the closets….sigh.
Selling my home meant allowing others to see inside. My realtor was kind but firm – much of the furniture needed to be removed along with all of my family photos or anything else that was personal. I was “allowed” to have three things sitting on my kitchen counters. One, of course, had to be the coffeemaker! That left me with two other items to display. The process wasn’t easy for me but it did begin a much needed activity of separating me from that building and allowing me to start to make room in my heart for a new place to call home.
Photos of my house were taken – printed on brochures and posted on the web. Anyone and everyone could look inside my home. That felt very intrusive but at least the house looked great. There was no clutter and everything was in its place. The upside was that the pictures didn’t reveal too much of me personally. I didn’t feel like my life and my home were open for others to judge. The pictures reflected much more of a house than my home. While painful, the process was very effective and my home sold quickly.
Since my move was somewhat spur of the moment and I didn’t know much about the real estate market in my new town, I have been renting. That means I am now the one spending hours on real estate sites looking into other people’s homes. Wow! I am amazed and frankly, often appalled at what I see online. The pictures show rooms that haven’t been cleaned up or depersonalized – family photos are there for all the world to see, messy cluttered rooms are on full display and oh my who chose those paint colors for the walls…did you really think other people would want to live in that home?
As a society it seems to me that we have become very casual about what we post. I couldn’t help but wonder if people are as careless with dating sites as they are with the real estate sites. Are their messy lives on display? Have they worked to clean up the situations that have led them to be “back on the market”?
And what about my heart – is it cluttered with messes that should have been cleaned up long ago making it more ready to be viewed?
My longtime buddy (no we don’t really know each other it just feels like we do since I have listened to his music since college, been to more concerts than I can count, and played certain albums over and over again) Jackson Browne sings in Love Needs a Heart off Running on Empty:
Love won't come near me, she don't even hear me
She walks past my vacancy sign
Love needs a heart, trusting and blind
I wish that heart was mine
My heart has a vacancy sign but who do I show that to? You aren’t going to find my heart listed on a dating site where others can view and critique my life. There are wonderful treasures in my heart to share with the right person but like a high end property on the market, the price isn’t listed and only serious, qualified candidates are allowed to view the version that contains the extra furniture, the family photos and the personal items. There is clutter in the closet I am working to clean out and let go of….as with most people it is an ongoing process.
Maybe someday my heart will get “listed” in a more public place that allows more people to take a look inside. But that would be the photo ready version and would likely not effectively capture the best parts of me…..stay tuned.
What about you? Whether or not your home or heart are on the market are there messes that need to be cleaned up? If so, with God’s grace and mercy let’s start working on them.
Blessings,
Vicki
© Chateau Life Coach