11.07.2005

Farmhouse Fantasy

I set up a visit with the realtor for Sunday. DearWife couldn't' go, because she and BigBrother had a previous appointment with Chuck E. Cheese for a pal's birthday party. So my tether to reality was temporarily removed.

LittleBrother and I headed to my P's to get Mom. On the ride down I was thinking about a paper DearWife wrote for an English class a long time ago. She was writing about how fondly she remembered the house she spent her early years in. The house was in Michigan, and she moved out before she was 5.

When she was in HS or college, she had the opportunity to go back. She was struck by how small the house was. The giant rooms she remembered were little when viewed with her adult eyes. Given that I had the same romantic notions about the farmhouse, no tether to reality, and it was for sale, I was hoping for that same let down.

I was hoping that I could look at that house and see it as though I had outgrown it. We got to my P's, and after LittleBrother mawed on some ham and cheese, we took Mom and headed to get Grandma. There was lots of discussion about what the new owners might and might not have changed. Lots of anticipation. None of us had seen the house in at least 15 years.

When we got there, I immediately knew that my reaction to this house wouldn't match DearWife's to hers. The land was just damn impressive. Mature trees all over. 5.5 acres of beautiful land. An orchard. Picnic tables. A pool and hot tub. The old corn crib.

The little hold I had on reality was leaving me. I started to rationalize buying the house we couldn't really afford, a move that didn't make sense, a forced culture shock for the family. I saw family gatherings with everyone. All of my cousins' and their kids, DearWife's family too of course. I saw my kids running around and playing in the giant snow drifts just like I did. I saw me giving rides on the lawn mower to my own grandkids some day, just like my grandfather gave me.

I pictured myself working around the house as the kids played in the pool or threw the ball around the yard. It was at the exact moment I had that thought that I was snapped back into reality. I freaking hate yard work. Next to housework, yard work is the bane of my existence. So that little Rockwell-ian portrait blew me out of the fantasy and back into reality a little bit.

You can see some of the pictures I took here. The actual tour of the house was great. The only DearWife moment I had was trying to figure out how we fit 4 kids, 6 adults and a ton of presents into the 13'x13' family room. Other than that, the house was as cool or cooler as I remembered.

As we got in the car to leave, we talked about all the memories we had there, and how good everything was. Then as we just left the property, Grandma said "That's where your Uncle died in the car accident. Right there in that ditch." No more fantasy land after that.

Here are a couple quick pictures:





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