Aiha'a on settling down

Corinne writes about considering buying a house. She wonders about being committed to a location, about her honu heart that seeks other places carrying home with her.

It's been two years since I bought my home, a condo really. I couldn't afford a house and a condo was closer to my apartment arrangement and seemed less committal than a house.

My parents who live here who were worried about their children being forced to live farther and farther away decided to help their children buy a home. They figured we had decent enough jobs to keep up with the mortgage.

At the time I had just gotten comfortable at my studio that overlooked an Ethiopian restaurant. Buying a house wasn't even an idea in my mind until my parents placed it there. Watching as my rent creeped slowly upward, the idea of paying myself with a mortgage didn't sound so bad, but I wondered too about opening one door to close others.

I kept wondering about my dreams to move to another place, travel the world for several months at a time, about the freedom of being single and unattached to anything. I watched as friends went to live in the Philippines for months at a time, wondered if I would ever be able to do that.

I went along with the home searching just to see and fill my curiosity. It was fun pretending to look at houses even ones I couldn't afford with my wildest imagination. But then my father would ask about whether I wanted to make a bid on one. He would discuss rising mortgage rates and timing and bidding wars. So I bid on one I thought I liked, I was fortunately overbid on that one.

Certainly a mortgage committs one to have an income, a consistent one at that. It's scary. Can't afford to lose your job, what happens to your house? Having a university job helps out. But even in this economy you wonder.

I remembered when my music teacher in high school bought a house and he misplaced for a moment the mortgage payment stubs. His face went ghostly pale, his eyes glistened wide in panic. He eventually found them safely tucked away in his bag. But I remembered the fear he had.

I continued to search. I figured if I'm getting pressured to buy a place, I was going to buy a really good place, a place that I could really make a home. I found one, this one. The building was well kept and was barely in my price range. There were two bidders. The other guy made a first bid $30K more than the asking price. Bastards! My broker was active in the negotiations with the seller. He even wrote up a sweet little blurb about me and my family. Afterall, this place had been her home too and the owner wanted it to go to good people. She liked us. She wanted to sell.

My broker calls, he says if I match the $30K, they'll sell to me and not consider the other bidder. I had to decide now. My broker was a nice man, he always left the decision up to me and never pressured me either way. He would go with whatever I would decide. I just wish I knew what my answer would be. I had kept my Taroh Cards on hand asking them what I should do. The cards were indifferent, I could decide either way. They along with my broker were waiting for my answer. I could feel this pressure well up in my chest, my back stiffening, my breath quivering, numbers and calculations racing through my mind. I know this feeling. It's the feeling of being on a precipice, knowing in my heart I should jump to the other side, yet fearing my fate if I should fail.

"Yes." I heard myself say, "Yes. yes. go for it. I'll match them."

"OK" click.

I put the phone down, slumped onto my bed. My hands were cold and shaking. I exhaled and melted into the sheets. I couldn't believe it. I bought a house. FUCK! what did I just do! None of my friends had bought homes. Buying homes were for my uncles and aunts who bought homes combining the incomes of 4 jobs. Buying homes were for married couples looking to have a place for their kid on the way. I'm not supposed to be a homeowner, I'm a single unattched woman still in her 20s, but I am. Shit!

The days that followed were a crash course in home sales. I would later bring a check the downpayment to the title company and signed over 50 pages like signing my life away.

Now that I've been here for 2 years, it hasn't been so bad. I enjoy bringing people into my home for gatherings. I think about the world in color now that I can paint the interior of my walls rather than the standard white of rented abodes.

I still dream of having homes in different parts of the world. My fiance and I talk about where we want these multiple abodes. I still think about places to travel and linger for a while. I think someday about how I will move from here, perhaps keep the property and rent it out. My friends now read "Rich dad, poor dad" books, put bids to buy homes in Las Vegas and elsewhere looking for that residual income that will allow them to quit their jobs someday. My taxes are slightly more complicated, no more EZ form for me, but then again, you can't deduct most of your rental payments like you can your mortgage payments.

I find that my dreams of my future are the same, yet different. I am still that single woman dreaming of living and travelling around the world, but I did committ to having a home, and being at home no matter where I physically was. I found I could always create home, that the power of home wasn't in the walls that I could paint, but in my heart, like the honu that swims the oceans. Home is where I make it.