It feels like it happened all of a sudden, yet the process was gradual. After years of various children staying with us for varying periods of time, they have established themselves elsewhere. Son Number One is in Colombia. Daughters Numbers One and Two live with their respective partners, and daughter Number Three just moved to London. I have a gut feeling she’s going to like it there.
Daughter Number Four hasn’t moved out yet, her argument being that she’s only nine. That’s fair enough. But it’s good to see her older siblings leading by example. Daughter Number Four knows the clock is ticking.
The process by which the grown-up kids have moved in and out again hasn’t been strictly formal: all of them have managed to leave behind more stuff than they arrived with. This is further complicated by the fact that Daughters One, Two and Three have rejected the traditional concept of ownership when it comes to clothes.
In other words, they shamelessly steal from each other. And because this theft and counter-theft has been going for some years, it seems impossible for them to recall who owns what. They don’t live with us any more, yet we are the custodians of wardrobes full of clothes that none of them own, but all of them own. I have, on occasion, tried to establish the provenance of individual garments, but this has always led to long rambling squabbles, which would lead to reminiscing, to gossiping, to laughing and forgetting what my question was in the first place.
The estate agent quoted a jaw-dropping figure for what he thought our house would go for
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But because parts of our home are now little more than a storage facility, it did re-spark an idea that had been loitering around the back of our minds: that we might sell the house – the idea being that we’d swap it for a place a little smaller in the same area, and shave off some of our debt.
Now, we’re not (completely) stupid. The reverberations of the housing crisis are felt everywhere. We guessed we probably wouldn’t have too much trouble selling the house, but finding one to buy would be extremely tricky. At the time of writing this, there are just three houses for sale in our area. By the time you read this, they will be sold.
And in fairness, the estate agent who came out to do the valuation didn’t understate that difficulty. The traditional method of selling your house and buying a new one straight away seems to be becoming increasingly rare.
The second part of his visit was more enjoyable. We walked from room to room, and he was hugely complimentary. Perhaps it’s something they all say, but he used the phrase ‘showhouse condition’ more than once. He finished by showing some other houses he had sold, and then quoted a jaw-dropping figure for what he thought our house would go for.
Yet after he left, we didn’t talk about it. We didn’t talk about it until 24 hours later. We couldn’t.
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When we eventually sat down to discuss the possibility of selling, we both quickly realised why we hadn’t been in any rush to have the conversation. Both of us had been dreading the idea that the other might be keen to proceed.
Because when we had showed him each room, we had told him what changes we had made: we had described the labour, the thought and the love that had gone into each part of it. And it was far more than we realised. Curiously, we were seeing our home with fresh eyes: and reminding ourselves how much we love it; how the concept of home is deeply fundamental to us. It’s fundamental to everyone.
We wasted that estate agent’s time, but he did us a huge favour. Even if some of the rooms are stuffed with mouldy clothes, we couldn’t be luckier. Tens of thousands of Irish people aren’t so lucky. And may never be.
