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The Manson Cottage. That was the moniker I had assigned to my old house. A house that just didn’t seem to want to be sold. The bane of my increasingly fragile temper. After moving in with the man, having an entirely second set of bills to pay was maddening. I wanted that house gone. I wanted to be out from underneath that mortgage payment – and the subsequent bills one incurs from being a home owner.
I wanted it BAD.
Then again, I had ALWAYS hated that damn house. There were so many things I didn’t like about it, aside from the bad taste it left in my mouth as I logged on to bill pay and watched more money go down the drain.
Yet, finally, it went under contract with an investor and closing day was fast approaching.
FINALLY.
Save one issue.
The issue that botched my Monday all to hell.
There was still stuff left in the house…and the buyer insisted that the few items in the garage be removed before closing. Which was a total oversight on my part, as I thought everything had been removed. But, because I didn’t want closing drama, I just wanted to get the stuff out and get it over with I made the command decision to do just that.
So, round about one in the afternoon, armed with 10 trash bags, I trekked to the Mason Cottage….one last time.
Usually, I am all about business. I have bought and sold houses before. I had counseled folks on how not to get emotional when they did it. I was a professional….dammit.
There was only one problem: I hadn’t sold a house that I had personally lived in before.
Inching ever closer to my Casa De Manson in my little red Camry, I was suddenly overcome with emotions. All of a sudden, I wanted to cry.
No, I wanted to SOB.
I remembered all of the Christmas mornings in that house. All ten of them. I remembered all of the Thanksgiving dinners. The movie nights. How Briaunna had measured how tall she was getting on one of the door frames; how amazing it was that those lines inched ever upward; how quickly time had passed in that house and how there were remnants of that passage of time everywhere; in every room. How I had done everything I could to make that house a home.
But I also remembered all of the frightening and terrifying things that our family endured in that house. I remembered the fire. I remembered drinking problems and threats of suicide. I remembered the screaming, the crying, the sobbing, the yelling, the fights the broken walls and doors. I remembered all of the times that I never wanted to walk in that front door.
All at once.
I texted a good friend of mine and said, “I can’t believe this, but I am about to cry….all over this stupid house.”
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| The Manson Cottage |
I pulled up to the house and couldn’t even park in the driveway. As I exited the car, trash bags in hand, I kept telling myself that it would all be over soon. As I walked up the driveway, I bagged up some newspapers that had been left on the porch, took the real estate agents cards left on the kitchen counter, checked each room to make sure it was clear and then went in the garage and began putting the remaining items in trash bags.
I took it all out to the dumpster. But I couldn’t move the dumpster. It was full of water. So I texted Mike about my plight. Thankfully, he offered to help me the following day.
Breathing a sigh of relief, knowing that it was almost over, I went in that house for the second to the last time.
And I cried.
As I went room by room, I cried.
I wasn’t crying just because I was sad or nostalgic, I suppose. I cried because of all of it. Because this chapter was finally over.
Thank God.
I think.
The next day, after I signed my closing papers, Mike came with me to help me with the dumpster so I could have everything out to the curb, satisfying the buyer’s wishes, so that he could close and we could fund.
Mike was a champ. I really don’t think I could have gotten all of it done had he not been kind enough to help me out. Not by myself, that’s for sure. He dumped the trash, cleaned up the stuff and we got everything out to the curb.
As we locked up the house and did one more final walk thru to make sure everything was out, Mike turned to me and said, “So, do you want to say goodbye?”
I smiled and said, “Nah, I said goodbye yesterday.”
And I had.
As we were leaving, the mailman pulled up and asked, “Do the Zamarripa’s still live here?”
To which I replied, “Not anymore. In fact, I’m the last Zamarripa to leave.”
And it felt good to say that.
As it should be.
I put the key in the lock of that front door for the very last time. I turned it, locking all of the bad memories inside….for good.
As I turned around, I felt the sun on my face. I closed my eyes and soaked it in for a moment. I was relieved.
I was happy.
I was ready to pick up the pen and start a new chapter.
As we got in the car to leave, I took one last look at the house I had come to refer to as the Manson Cottage, that house high up on a little hill that we had bought 10 years ago, that house that held so much of my life inside its four walls, so much of our lives in those four walls, a house that I had (over the years) grown to hate with everything in me….and I let go.
Because, I had said goodbye yesterday. And on that sunny Tuesday afternoon, I had also said goodbye to all the other yesterdays before that.
Because I was the last Zamarripa to leave, and finally, the last Zamarripa to leave it all behind.
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