It has been a little while since I did a personal update, and I’ve finally got some drama to write about. That makes for a more interesting update type post, but not great on a personal level!
So, a few months ago, I found out that my dad was selling his BEAUTIFUL lake home to my stepsister. It was going to take a while for it to happen, but that was the plan. I told him if it fell through for any reason, to let me know, as we were interested. That was the third time he sold a house to a sibling we would’ve liked to put an offer on, so I wanted it to be clear that we were looking for a bigger place. (It’s much larger than our house with a kitchen out of a magazine, plus a huge in-ground pool.)
A couple weeks ago, he called and let me know some issues came up with my stepsister buying it, and despite giving them a few weeks to think about it and figure things out, she backed out. So it was ours if we wanted it, and we 100 percent did. We went over for lunch with the intention of privately talking about it, but he and my stepmom let the cat out of the bag in front of the kids, and they were super excited.
That excitement lasted two days.
And then my dad texted me and said my stepsister was asking to reconsider. He and my stepmom thought it would “only be fair” for us to step away from the deal to give her more time. “I know you’d want to be fair to her. This is important to her and [stepmom], and they’ve been crying over it. I don’t want any resentment there and to keep the peace. But it’s your choice.”
What a position to put me in. So…our feelings didn’t matter, it didn’t matter if there was any resentment coming from us or how important it was to us, and it was on us to keep the peace (instead of my stepsister, who never should’ve come back asking after a) backing out and b) knowing we were getting it). Lovely.
I told my dad that he was putting us in a bad position considering we’d shook on the deal and he had talked about it in front of the kids (we weren’t planning to tell them until we signed anything). He said he still wanted me to be fair, though, so we were like what-the-fuck-ever and told him to do what he wanted. (I guess I could’ve stood my ground for once in my life, but that would’ve just ended badly.) He thanked us and gushed over how big-hearted we were to be so fair and give my stepsister a chance.
A few days later, my stepsister decided she wanted the house, so that was that. “Unless she changes her mind again, then you can buy it.” Ha! And then I guess she could do the same shit again? We were pissed over it, and damned if that doesn’t bring up a lot of childhood shit and hurts some of the progress we’ve made relationship-wise over the past couple of years.
As upset as we were, we got over it fairly quickly. There are a few pros to not moving (like packing), plus we would really miss our neighborhood. It’s really nice and quiet and outside of one dude, our neighbors are really nice. (We wouldn’t have any neighbors in the other house.) The way they did things sucked, but staying angry won’t help any. I’ll take the lesson learned there, remember my place in that family, and be even more grateful for my little family and home. The kids were upset but quickly came up with some pros to not moving, too, so I’m thankful for that.
I have some other stuff to write about, but I think that’s enough for one post!