I've always had an addiction to looking at real estate. Even though I'm content with my current home here in Canada, I can't resist peeking at what other people are living in. Whenever I'm out for a drive, I pick up flyers and real estate magazines at gas stations. I prowl through MLS on line, watch every design and reno show on TV, and generally lust after land and houses. I've even been known to go through open house walk-throughs even though I had no intention of buying the home. I've always had a special place in my heart for unique and quirky places. You know the type of thing -- converted windmills and fallout shelters and convents, houses built over rivers and inside trees. I am drawn to property like I'm drawn to chocolate.
Maybe this compulsion is because I'm a writer and every house feels like the set of a movie, ready for a story to begin. Every time I see an enticing property, my head fills with potentials and what-ifs. I probably see what's in my imagination more clearly than what's actually in front of me. Or maybe I went to the Parade of Homes with my mom at a particularly impressionable age. Maybe my inner heart is telling me I should have been an architect. Maybe I'm just nosy.
My husband and I have sometimes chatted about getting a building lot and building a home to retire to one day, and I have spent countless reams of paper doodling potential floor plans. We like to go on weekend drives around the province, checking out little villages to retire to, because the one thing I've always been sure of is that I don't want to end my days in the crowded city.
One of my recent browsings on line revealed this little gem, located two hours from our current home:
It was twenty minutes from the beaches of Lake Huron and a five-minute walk to a lovely, small conservation area, surrounded by beautiful farmland. Even though it was the height of the pandemic and I hadn't gone to a grocery store in 17 weeks, I wanted to see this one in person. I showed it to my long-suffering husband, and to my surprise, he liked it. And agreed to drive down to view it.
We viewed it once, kicked the tires, mulled it over for all of ten minutes, and---without giving it time to frighten us---we bought it.
Yup. Sheer madness. No inspection, no checking out of the locale, no thoughts really about what we'd do with it. And no hesitation.
Now, people who know me know that I debate for five minutes over what brand of toilet paper to buy, and if you take me to a restaurant, be prepared to spend twenty minutes waffling over what to order from the menu. (Mmm...waffles.) In short, I have never been good at making decisions, and a big decision involving money usually involves clipboards and detailed lists of pros and cons. So you know this purchase of a church was an instinctive action, from the heart. It wanted me. It felt immediately as if it was welcoming us, wrapping comforting arms around us, solid and kind and sheltering. It said I'm a place that has known a lot of love, and I will love you. And so it felt quite natural to say I will love you back.
Life goals. ♥️
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