Matt bought our house on October 31, 2009, almost a year ago. That time was both exciting and stressful, and it led up to what became my first home. It would be the first time when all of my belongings, and my mail, and my cat were kept in one place. Until then, I had multiple homes with stuff at each of them. It was what I knew, what I was used to; I had shuffled between Mom, Dad and Grandparents since I was very young. We didn’t move into our house until December fifth, but the months leading up to the big move, and moving day itself meant a hurricane of emotions inside me.
Corey vs. the old Jewish lady
It was days before we closed on our house, and after months of searching, bidding, signing, waiting, crying, we found our house and it would soon be ours. Matt and I decided to buy a house on his Mom’s suggestion, bless her, and we began researching. Well, I began researching and Matt mostly listened. I’m the worrier, he’s the sensible-calmer-downer; it works. Finding the house was the easy part. We both knew what we wanted and how much we wanted to pay. Convincing the crotchety old bitty to sign it over and get the hell out was the hard part.
The first time we met Joyce, my future nemesis, was in August. Her house had just been put on the market and we stopped by on one of our many days of searching. It was great, perfect even compared to the half destroyed foreclosures we had seen earlier, and the price was right. Joyce seemed nice, slightly eccentric, possibly crazy, old but nice. Her hair was trying to be red but it was an old lady pink. She was tiny and very Jewish. I lost count of the Yiddish words within the first five minutes. I could tell Matt was counting them in his head too. I watched him lose count and smiled. Perhaps in an effort to up sell her house, Joyce offered us toast and played the piano and bongos for us. Not together obviously, although that would have been amazing…
Anyways, our relationship with Joyce started out as such a relationship should. Everyone was polite and cheery, though it wouldn’t stay that way. It looked like a win-win; Joyce sells her house and we move out of the 2 bedroom apartment we shared with Matt’s friend Chris and his girlfriend. I didn’t have a key to the apartment and getting up at 7am to leave when Matt went to work was old the week after I started staying there. It was time to move out.
Now we were so close closing on the house, finally. We had been back and forth with Joyce about everything from cost to closing date and did everything to accommodate her. It hadn’t been easy or stress free. At the same time, Matt’s twin brother and sister-in-law welcomed an adorable little sprout into the world. Everyday was busier than the last. Baby Liam was only a day old when I got to hold him for the first time, but we’ll save those emotions for another day. My phone rang in the oversized blue hospital room while we were visiting the newest addition. I dug for my phone in my messy bag and apologized to everyone.
“Hello?” I questioned. She knew what I was doing tonight, why would she call when she knows I’m at the hospital with Matt’s family?
“Cor! We’ve got problems…” my Mom sounded out of breath. I wanted to tell her to stop and not say another word. I didn’t want to know right now. I wanted to enjoy seeing the baby. “Joyce is refusing to close!”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I blasted, before thinking about where I was or who I was talking to. Tears sprung from my eyes and pooled in my lap without my consent. We had already given Joyce so much, waited so long, and now she does this shit to us. Unfair doesn’t even begin to explain. “Why?” I asked when I could think again.
“She is senile and old and crazy. And she doesn’t want to” Mom said.
“Seriously! What a bitch! I mean, can she even do that?” Laws and all that business weren’t my forte, and this was my first home buying rodeo.
“Yeah, she can. You can try and take legal action against her because she did sign the initial contract, but that is going to be expensive and time consuming” she explained.
“Ugh! I hate her!” I didn’t even know where to begin. The hospital room full of people had vanished and was reorganized into stunned faces. “I’ll call you back” I told her and hit the end button on my Blackberry.
“What’s up?” Matt asked.
“I’m going to go to Joyce’s and murder her tonight with my bare hands” I joked.
“Why? What now?” Matt was more concerned now, he knew my sarcasm came out most when I was really on the brink of insanity.
“She’s saying she won’t close” and my anger reduced me to tears again.
“It’s ok” Matt cooed as he put his long arm around me, his goal was always to keep me calm. Staying glued was one of my favorite things about Matt, especially since my tendency to become unglued was at an all time high. I focused on breathing and keeping it together. I had been dating Matt a year and I didn’t want his family to see me in this ridiculous state. I hadn’t sealed the deal yet, no ring, so I had to try and be normal.
“This is frustrating. What do we do?” I asked. His sister-in-law chimed in with her lawyerly advice, and my heart rate slowed. “Ok. We can do this, let’s try talking to Joyce”
“Good. I like that. We can call her in the morning.” Matt sighed. He was sick of all this drama too.
We reasoned with Joyce, and closed on our house in the following days. She ended up staying in our house for an extra month. Fine, perfect. I had to fight to get days off from my retail job from hell, and now I would spend them sitting at home staring at my life packed up in boxes, waiting for December. I thought we had finally finished with Joyce and her craziness, but as it turns out we had only just begun.
Moving Don’t
Joyce was moving out! FINALLY! I was worried we would have a squatter on our hands and I would have to start fighting dirty, like singing loudly outside the house, to get her old ass out. But, after the longest November of my life, she was leaving. Our moving day had been pushed back several times, and we fought about the large check she owed us for rent. I’m still not sure we got that effing check. Her equally insane slightly more hinged daughter dropped the keys off to my mom that afternoon and we were all excited to be shot of old Joycey. When Matt got home from work, we met my mom at our new house. This was it! I could hardly walk I was so excited, one foot then another, Corey. We were done with Joyce, we were moving tomorrow; this was ours, all ours. My mom snapped a picture of us turning the key and my cheeks burned from smiling. I followed Matt through the door and my traitorous tears burst through as he flipped on the light.
“WHAT THE HELL!?” I screamed and my mom poked her head through our doorway.
“Whoa” she said, “what a freakin mess”. Matt kept quiet and flipped on lights as he walked through what might have been the aftermath of a bomb. So much for all my dreams coming true.
“Is she kidding me? What is all of this?” I kicked trash and paper, pushed past furniture and surveyed the damage. It was bad. Really bad. Whatever Joyce felt like leaving, she left. Potted dying plants, old dirty dishes, everything. It was like someone phoned her to say that aliens were coming so she grabbed a few things in a whirlwind and abandoned the rest in a quick escape. I thought of my one day off this week, tomorrow, our designated moving day that would now take twice as long since Joyce hadn’t really moved out at all. She was gone, but all her kitschy shit was left for us to deal with.
“At least she took the piano” Matt chimed. My smile fought my anger and won.
“Yeah, at least there’s no piano” I chuckled through the tears. “I just can’t believe this is happening!”
Through all of this, I had been excited; excited to have my stuff together, excited to be with Matt everyday, excited to cook food that might turn out bad, just excited. This was something new, something brilliant and I wanted to stare directly at its light and lose focus. I already had the man I wanted, and now we had a house. It turned out to be a house full of worthless shit, but it was ours. Matt never tried to stifle my excitement, but he never truly accompanied me on my journey to blind insanity. He was too level headed for that. Leading up to moving day, I made him remind me that he was excited, since he never really wears it quite like me. But even then, this would be different for both of us. Home. Our home. My Home.
I didn’t know what to expect, and even now it’s new and real. Everyday is foreign at first and I think back to times when I had multiple homes. My memories of those homes aren’t bad, or worse, or sad, they’re just different. I never felt like I belonged to one particular place, none of them were truly mine. Almost like I had been lost and decided to rest somewhere rather than actually attach myself to the address. But not now, I was home and holding on for dear life.
awesome!
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