das Haus verlassen, #5

Well today is the big day:  my house is supposed to officially be on the market for sale.  Papers have been signed and dated.  The real estate agent is engaged.  I am fully prepared to shamelessly try and help the selling process by and any all means.  This doesn't, however, mean that all is "well".  In fact, my head is a virtual bag of cats, swirling an turning full of thoughts and feelings, most of which probably don't make much sense in the larger scheme of things.  But why should this event have any less of an impact on my mental state?  Hell, I can over-think crossing the street, so it's not like I need an excuse.

Anyway, here's a random collection of thoughts running through my head as I head into the great unknown of "das Haus verlassen".

• Time - Just how long will it take to sell the house?  It could take a week or it could take 9 months.  According to the agent, typically the longest she sees houses in the market is about 9 months.  For me, that would put me into April 2014.  Scary thought.
• Money - Also according to the agent, the single most important element that influences the sale of a house is the price.  People don't sell their house primarily because they want too much for it.  As for me, I'm pricing the house at below what we paid for it in the early 1990's.  I could list for more, but I'm not interested in making a buck...I am interested in selling a house.  I don't have a mortgage on the property, so there is no amount I need to make; in fact, I want enough to pay off some bills and have money for a down-payment on a new place.
• Effort - I am working my ass off.  Seriously, and I don't have a small ass.  I've painted more, cleaned more, straightened more, fixed more than I've ever done in my entire life.  God bless my brother Rich, who has been here a few days a week helping out.  When this is all said and done, I'm going to get him something he's always wanted but would never buy for himself.

In a way, all of the effort I am putting into this is rather therapeutic, as if I didn't have 10,458 things to do, I might just spend too much time pondering just all that this change means.  A few years ago, I had one goal for myself:  do big things.  Change my life.  The trajectory I was on could never be sustained; I have no doubt that, in the absence of big change, I'd be struggling at this very moment to maintain my very sanity.  Not that the path over the past few years has always been easy; early on, it was incredibly difficult.  Life, however, is truly an iterative process, if you have a plan that is; not that I always has a well defined plan (other than "change my life"), but I'd like to think that I've known the direction to take, even if the goal was a bit fuzzy.

What's not so fuzzy?  That would be the immediate goal at hand:  sell the house, and begin the next phase of my life.  Time to kick the tires and light the fires.