HOW DO YOU SAY GOODBYE TO A HOUSE? (August 27, 2020)

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I’ve slept badly these last weeks. Anxious dreams and negative thoughts have haunted my nights. A lot of staring into the dark and thinking, “Oh no. Why did I do/say that?” 

Rain on Dentista beach

There’s a reason for this unsettled state: we have owned a beach house and a boat for the last 22 years. For various reasons we had put them on the market for 4-5 years without any success, and then suddenly, in the course of one weekend, we had a firm buyer for the boat and 3 offers on the house. When you’ve been the sole owner for all those years you have no knowledge of the ins and outs of property sales and, as a result, the ensuing days have been stressful, filled with insecurity and demands for a surprising amount of documentation. Add to this our Covid isolation and there’s a hot mix of worry right there.  

 

Last week Oswaldo and I spent two days there alone – our first real outing from our home since mid-March – separating and packing what we would remove from the beautiful vacation home we’d created together and which had given us so much pleasure. I found in myself a deep-seated Danish DNA of knowing how to pack boxes, and matter-of-fact set to work stopping only for simple meals. Meanwhile Oswaldo felt more lost and anguished, as he took down paintings from the walls and wrapped them. Each of the two nights we shared a bottle of wine and fell into bed at 9pm – only to toss and turn. Up by 6am we repeated the process, also helping each other carry the finished boxes up the stairs, not an easy feat for us septuagenarians, though aided by the strength gained from five months of self-isolation housework in our many-staired home.

 

Once back home more sleepless nights followed, while I mulled over why this was happening. Most likely I’m blocking feelings about leaving the house behind, refusing to consider the loss of that joy. My life has been of many goodbyes. I left Denmark, then England, Ireland, and the US. Once settled in Brazil, I lost too many friends when their jobs ended and they returned to their country of origin. I got numbed to goodbyes – they were just too painful. My cozy cared-for dwellings would recede into clouded memories, and when close friends left, I got so upset I was almost angry with them – the sense of abandonment was that acute.

 

Now we have to face fact we have gotten old(er). For a retired couple the upkeep of house and boat is costly, and the three-hour drive down is long. The pleasure and excitement of going out in the boat, looking for new beaches, as well as sailing through terrible weather, has waned. The best times were when our son and his friends were teenagers and they’d jump and wakeboard and there were pizza- and new year’s parties – all of us together - our friends and their kids from the other houses. So much fun.

 


Implied in our choice to leave all this behind now is an approaching sense of mortality – of being at the other end, so to speak. And that is very unsettling. We may not want to go there, but the thought persists and sits on our shoulder at night when we should be sleeping.



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