We just listed our home for sale two days ago*. If you’ve ever done this, you know how much work it is to get your house ‘ready to sell’… the cleaning, the editing down of clothing, the painting, the decorating. I like to joke that you have to act as if you don’t really live there with two kids and three pets! It’s like faking it until someone ‘buys what your selling’ and then you can breathe again.
When you open up your home for someone to come into it whom you don’t know, you are essentially opening up to judgment. They will like some things about your house or your decorating taste… and they will not like some things. They will make a judgment about your house one way or the other. My husband reminded me of this vulnerable place to be in once you ‘go live’ with the listing. You go live, then you just wait… wait for the showings and the random strangers to walk through your very personal space. I’ve had to give up caring about some things… like the area rug I don’t like in my living room, the old HVAC unit outside and how it looks, that I never landscaped the one bed out front. I’ve told my husband, “we have to end it somewhere.” We just need to list it and then wait.
So now we wait. I breathe… in and out, in and out… and I remain grounded in the belief that what I have to offer, what we have to offer, is ‘enough’ for someone out there. Someone will judge this home favorably and will become the next owners. Then, when that happens, we will move on to our next home.
I do believe that this idea of ‘opening up to judgment’ is a good practice for vulnerability and learning that I will be okay with whatever happens. It is not attaching to the outcome so much as allowing what I have to offer to be enough. This has been a big lesson for me in the past few months: what I have to offer is enough. A big lesson and a big relief.
*By the time this posts it will be a bit more than just “2 days ago.”
