I’ve been living here for five years now.

My lease was coming up for renewal in August, so I was going to ask for another extended lease and ask about an option to buy at the end of that.

The properly manager emailed me as I was getting ready to send that suggestion. “Your lease is up in August and the owner is looking to sell. Are you interested?”

Well, yes and no. But mostly yes.

That was back in late February. We spent some time going back and forth before we got an actual price. It was just good enough (and exceptionally good by most normal measures) that I could manage to make it work with the mortgage guy.

It’s going to be tight, budget-wise, but I’ll also not have to worry about moving.

And not moving was really the biggest driver of this.

Are you excited?

This is a totally unplanned purchase. I had a plan to get enough together to consider a purchase in the future, but, right at this moment, this was something very tough to make work. It’s been more or less pure luck that I can do this at all.

No, I’m not excited about this. I was excited about the other plans I was working toward for this year and next. But in order to make this work, I had to cancel all of those kind of big, kind of time-connected plans (they aren’t things that can just be rescheduled and still have the same meaning or impact).

I am fully and completely appreciative of how positive this situation is, overall. But the choice to do this was driving by practicality… and an absolute dislike of having to move.

But people seem pretty insistent that I should be excited. They’ve argued with me about it. Trying to convince me that I’m totally wrong about how I feel.

Please, don’t ever do that to anyone in any situation.

Believe people when they tell you how they feel. Accept it.

If you don’t, they’re going to stop being honest with you about how they feel. They may even stop talking to you altogether.

You have no actual insight or understanding about what’s going on inside someone else unless you actually listen to them. Their mind and heart is not your mind and heart. Good relationships are built on that understanding.

It’s just fine to be excited about the positive developments in someone’s life… and this is 100% a net positive development. So I’m fine with you being excited… just, y’know, don’t expect me to be excited in the same way (or at all). I’m still mourning the plans that had to be killed to make this work.

On a deeper level, this was never going to be anything other than a bittersweet event, even if it was something I’d planned for. Buying a house just for myself was never something I considered. It was always “supposed” to be a team effort and a shared adventure. Another one of those big “firsts” that’s just never likely to happen at this point. I’m still trying to be completely okay with that.

What’s next?

It’s time for my annual TableTop Day game event. I’ve been holding off on sending out the invite for that until all this house stuff was a “for sure” thing one way or the other. So that will be doubling as a preliminary housewarming party. But it’s not going to be quite as lavish as my Spring event usually is.

There aren’t a whole lot of renovations or other things that will be able to go on. The money just isn’t there for that. Yet. In another few years (or if I win the lottery), I’ve got a lot of plans.

There’s a lot that needs to be done in the yard. And I’ll be doing some of it anyway, since that was already in progress and it’s all just me doing manual labor (and I’m still somewhat capable of that).

Inside the house, maybe some paint here and there to change up some colors. Maybe some fixture updates here and there (if I can budget them in).

Mostly, though, it’s going to continue to be business as usual.

Except now I’ll be able to finally get rid of all those boxes I’ve been saving just in case I need to move again. (And everything that I was keeping around just in case the owners ever asked about them for some random reason.)

Most importantly…

The Durosian Empire is now officially landed… about a quarter acre and a nice, with a solid “castle” on it, in a nice quiet cul-de-sac in close proximity to all the important things.

Great things will come of this… once the coffers are refilled.