I put an offer on a house today. I looked at three and chose the one on university street, a one bedroom apartment in a divided 1875 mansion. My ceilings would be 13 feet high and I'd be next door to campus. Funny, I take more time choosing a pasta sauce. I know what I want when it comes to property, I know what to look for and it's likely the only area in my life I can confidently say that.

I love houses. I love owning them, I love fixing them, I love loving them. I grew up in a 1900 farm-house come dump, the same farmhouse my father grew up in. I loved that dump. I even loved the late 1970's reno which stripped it of its charm, leaving in its place green shag and loud wall-papers of burnt reds and yellows. It was in that house I invented beds with heat vents and became comforted with the sound of stormy winds whistling through unsealed windows. It was there I learned the all-purpose uses of foam insulations,(It truly is "great stuff")O the nights I spent picking at those poorly-foamed in windows,reading the stars and waiting for sleep to come, and then the days followed being yelled at for doing it. ...I have no idea where I am going with this.

This sale is heavy weighted for me. It means much more than a financial investment or a home. This is me pushing myself again. Standing, and making things move...in my life...for me. I bought houses when no one said I could, and when no one said I should. I humiliated myself in front of bankers and realtors, men humored by my smallness and youngness and girlness, some angered at thinking they were wasting their time, and then angered again when they realized I couldn't be manipulated to their advantage, towards their listings. It was such a vulnerable place for me. A place of need, a place of me needing others to help me get something I wanted. I hate needing people. I hate being inadequate on my own, of having to surrender myself to another, not knowing where my place ends and theirs begins, not being able to pay back a service, being indebted to another. It's a huge flaw of mine and part of my fucked-up-ness. This is me facing that again, pushing for something not knowing if I can get, asking the help of others, bankers and realtors, to help me and work for me not knowing if their work will be rewarded. The only certainty is the certainty that nothing will come if I don't ask, if I don't set my mind, my stubbornness to something, exhausting every possibility. This is me forcing a change, desiring something and chasing after. This is me testing myself, seeing if I am strong again-seeing if I am me again.