This past week was another cortisol-filled adventure.  After the whole incident with our downstairs neighbor, our car was vandalized in our parking space.  We don’t believe our downstairs neighbor is to be blamed for this, although we do suspect a friend of one of the tenants in the multi-unit next door.  We have no solid proof though, so filing the police report was more for our own sense of closure than anything else.  The car is pretty much OK, so we are trying to move on and forget about the incident.  

We got an offer on our condo towards the end of last week and after many, many rounds of counter-offers, we finally came to an agreement and got our condo under contract.  This relieves much stress as we no longer have to prepare for showings that could happen pretty much at any moment, AND we can expect (if things go according to plan) to be moved by July 1st.  Today we attended several open houses around town and found a house that we could be happy in, although we plan on seeing 5 more houses tomorrow just to be sure.  The house needs some work, mostly cosmetic stuff, and a new roof.  We saw some of the neighbors outside gardening with their kids, and they waved and smiled at us.  I wanted to pinch myself, not believing that we weren’t being asked to apologize for Holden’s existence for once.  Our lives are going to improve so significantly once we are out of our current housing situation.  Enduring these final weeks in our condo will be tough, so we plan on packing the coming weeks with trips, bike rides, mini-hikes, grilling, and strawberry picking.  Our downstairs neighbors have made it clear that they don’t intend to be courteous with the volume of their music, so unfortunately, it looks like we must grin and bear it for a while longer.   And don’t even get me started about the passive-aggressive door-slamming…

So where does karmic retribution factor into all of this??  Clearly, someone who is as awful as our neighbor has got to have it coming to her at some point, right?  Well, I have a prediction that I would like to share.  The individual who is buying our house came in with a low-ball offer and continually countered our counteroffers, even after we very clearly stated that our counteroffer was FINAL and we weren’t willing to accept anything that she would offer beneath our last offer.  Did she take no for an answer??  Nope.  She kept at us.  What does this mean about her as a person??  Might she be obstinate?  Might she be unwilling to give up until she gets her way??  Might she fight our downstairs neighbor tooth and nail over every little thing??  I am willing to bet the money we lost on our condo that she will.  Believe me when I say I DELIGHT in the idea of this.  Paybacks are a bitch, what can I say.

While I am relieved and happy that we will be moving on, part of me feels sort of sad and nostalgic about leaving the home to which we first brought Holden.  As I cuddled him to sleep this evening, I was looking around his bedroom and thinking about all of the hours I have spent in there nursing him, reading him stories, tickling him, trying to pin him down for diaper changes.  I have a vivid memory of one of the first nights we had him home.  I remember sitting up with him and nursing him for several hours in the middle of the night.  I remember that he finished nursing and I laid him in my lap (yes, he actually used to fit in my lap), and I remember that he had his eyes open and he looked up at me with so much love and he smiled at me and made a noise that sounded like “A-goooooo.”  And when he did that I remember feeling like he was a conduit for everything in this world that is unconditionally loving, gentle, and pure.  I felt such immense love for him in that moment, and such an intense connection with him, and moreover, I felt so lucky and grateful that such a good person came from me and Rob into this world.  In that moment, I felt like I really had a sense of Holden as a person.  I felt overwhelmingly that Holden was a good person….a gentle soul.  Moments like this one are moments I want to remember from living here.  I will pack these moments lovingly in bubblewrap, place them in a box, and secure them for the ride.