Offline Update, and Some System Stuff

by Allegra

We have found a buyer for our parents' house and have entered into contract.  The offer that we and our brothers accepted was about 96 percent of our original asking price, so we're all happy with that.  The house is clearly a fixer-upper, and we marketed it as such, with the hope that we'd find a house-flipper or other handy person who'd be interested in renovating but would not try to lowball us.  Getting to this point took about a month, and we figure that the closing will be in about another two months.

Brother number 2 is still looking for an apartment but has not yet found one.  We and B1 have convinced him to consider moving to a slightly more expensive place temporarily, and then continuing to look for something cheaper.  Even so, it's still a challenge for him to find a place, and we don't have the time or energy to help him.

The three of us continue to get rid of items that need to be disposed of before the closing.  Since we no longer have access to a dumpster, we've been focusing on shredding or recycling paperwork that's accumulated over the years.  We're hoping to donate some of the furniture soon.

Beyond this, it stresses out our system to focus on the situation.  As we told B1, going through the process of change/loss is painful for us.  It doesn't matter that the result will be better for us.  The emotional experience of getting from A to B is so difficult that on one level, we'd rather things remain as they are, because the temporary, transitional pain feels far more harmful than the static present does.  We'd rather perpetuate a current unbeneficial state than go through the pain of making things better in the long run. 

But I personally have always believed that change, whether positive or negative, is inevitable, and that there's no such thing as stasis.  Others inside resist this belief.  But I think that the more we work on acceptance and self-empowerment, the better off that we'll be.  I understand that I haven't personally experienced the pain that others in our system have experienced, and that for this reason I can never truly understand their reality.  But this doesn't mean that there's no value to my desire and my commitment to making our life better.  As Laura says, pain and suffering are highly overrated.  And I agree.