After weeks of tension, the wait is over. Finally—while I
was cooking a cheeseburger at work—my mortgage broker emailed me to inform me
that it was finally finished. We are clear to close.
For a month, all of my nerves had been pushed to the limits
while waiting for the bank to decide if they were going to lend me—an ex-con—$140,000.
They pulled apart my credit, my tax history, and my job history. They asked
some really good questions like, “Where are all of your tax records?” And, “Where
is all of your income from 2103-2015?” And I was all like, “Bwahahaha. I really
like your tie!”
No, I never said a word to these people, and I never saw them, that’s what a
mortgage broker is for. He fielded all of the tough questions for me, and made
everything except gathering all of the documents easy.
Seeing those three little magical words—clear to close—was
truly dreamlike. It meant that there was no longer a possibility that the former
me could impact this grand decision.
Now there are a whole new set of challenges, but they are all
surmountable. I looked at the pictures from the appraisal and saw a few
projects that we need to work on to make things look nice inside, and I have no
clue how to do any of them. In fact, when it comes to building, repairing, or
maintaining anything in and around a home, I am a virgin. So I will bring my
hammer and screws and pound away until I figure it out. That’s not exactly
true, but I am starting from scratch and own no tools or knowledge on how to do
something like install carpet, put up drywall (or sheetrock. Or are those the
same thing?), or plumb pipes. I will be using YouTube a lot for information,
and I am hoping that Amanda and I have enough friends to collectively fix all
of our minor problems.
First things first, get the basement carpeted. After the
inspection, I had the owners pull up all of the tiles in the basement that were
cracked. Well, that left a rather unattractive pattern on the floor, and it
looks much worse than when we first saw it.
The basement is the
room that has the most potential, so I’m not in a hurry to fix the aesthetics.
I want us to have a vision of what we want it to look like before we do anything
too drastic. But for now, maybe some cheap carpet will do the trick.
And then there’s the bathroom. The tile looks like something that
a discount morgue passed on in 1970. The bathtub itself is a homemade walk-in
and as far as I can tell, it simply needs to be replaced.
And then there’s the wallpaper. The days following the
closing this coming Friday, and every Monday remaining in the month of May,
will be dedicated to wallpaper removal and painting. I am enlisting anybody
with arms, or knowledge on how to best remove the tacky stuff. Pun intended.
There are a few minor issues that can be easily fixed with a
little elbow grease and some cash. The boiler and furnace should probably be
serviced, and the condenser for the central air will need to be replaced in a
few years. Like I said before, these are all manageable, and with money going
into savings for this type of stuff, we have nothing to worry about.
The bottom line is, we are moving into a place we can call
our own. We are building equity. We are building our lives.
If I was able to make this happen, so can you; no mistake
big or small cannot be overcome. None of this would have been possible had I
not been diligent about a few things after my release, namely working on my
problems that made me need to self-destruct.
For the first time in… ever, I am proud of myself and all of
my accomplishments. So maybe it’s okay to show off a little of what I’ve earned
as a result of working the twelve steps with a sponsor. I like to keep this
blog related to recovery, and surely the positive consequence is worth sharing.
And this is where I am now:
This is where I will be. This is where I will spend my
foreseeable future with the ones I love. This is home.
