Living in a condominium steps away from the Seawall and the marina is surreal. <\/i>(photo from flickr.com\/photos\/nuntz)<\/i><\/p>\n
Nobody would deny that the concept of a new home is exhilarating. It\u2019s the packing up a lifetime of belongings, and having to sell and give away a plethora of things that plunges you into ice-cold reality. And let\u2019s not forget the joys of the actual move.<\/p>\n
A therapist once advised me to \u201cget comfortable with uncertainty.\u201d Hmmm. That\u2019s like saying, \u201cLearn to enjoy having hot oil poured down your back.\u201d I think not. Much as I strive to embrace that pithy advice (and, on occasion, even succeed), I am just not cut out for it. You can only imagine how well I did with our recent move to a new condo.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been almost a month and I still can\u2019t find my passport or oven mitts. Not that I\u2019m planning to travel anytime soon. But I would like to cook.<\/p>\n
Without exaggeration, I packed at least 75 boxes and countless bags of belongings to shlep from our two-bedroom apartment to our new place. And lest you assume that we did what most retirees do and downsized \u2013 our collective wisdom ushered us into a bigger space. It is a condo with a kitchen large enough to land an aircraft carrier \u2013 which has always been a dream of mine (the size, not the aircraft carrier part). But the dream turned into a miniature nightmare when we moved in and I realized that I had next to no general storage space. Hall closet? Big enough to house a miniature turtle. Bathroom cupboards? Spacious enough for an extra roll of toilet paper and some air freshener. But I do have my humongous kitchen, and you can bet that I plan to cook and bake till the cows come home.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019ve learned nothing else, I\u2019ve learned that you can\u2019t have it all. You prioritize and maybe get 80% of what you originally wanted. Then, you just have to swallow the 20% and move forward. And get creative. Despite my apparent whining, I am truly feeling blessed and in awe of where we live now. We are mere steps from the Seawall and the marina, flanked by gorgeous condos. We are forced to peer daily at the spectacular mountains and sparkling lights of downtown. I keep asking myself, \u201cIs this really my new neighbourhood?\u201d When I come home and walk down the hall to our place, I feel like I\u2019m in a hotel. Surreal, to say the least.<\/p>\n
I had always been fiercely protective of our rental apartment and South Granville \u2013 we had great neighbours, little coffee shops where I was a regular, we were walking distance to grocery stores, drugstores, restaurants and the beach. Having lived in that apartment building for 37 years, I was their longest tenant. It was really all I knew. I had not lived in a house since I left home in 1974 to go away to university. Owning a home was always something I aspired to do. Until it became an unreachable reality. Being a single librarian until I was 53, owning a home was a pipe dream.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Then, I married, and we enjoyed our little love nest until October 2023, when we learned that our building (along with half the neighbourhood) was going to be torn down so high-rises could be built. Thank you, Broadway Plan! At first, I freaked out. And then, I started packing. I knew not where we would end up, but the writing was on the wall. Actually, the first indicator was in the summer of 2023, when men started hammering little metal plaques on the trees in our area and spray-painting the sidewalks. It was cryptic, for sure, but the mystery didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n In February 2024, the company hired to \u201ctransition\u201d renters into new homes held a Zoom meeting with all the tenants in our building. No promises were made, but the starkness of the facts hit us like ice water in the face. Right of first refusal. Financial compensation. Rent top-up. Blah, blah, blah. The one phrase that stuck with me though was TRPP \u2013 Tenant Relocation and Protection Policy. Luckily, tenants do have some protection, but it doesn\u2019t solve the fundamental issue of unaffordable housing that plagues this city.<\/p>\n Time passed, we considered our options, I fretted over everything. It was a maelstrom of emotions. It took me awhile to wrap my head around the possibility that buying something could actually be within reach. But, events collaborated, luck joined the party, I took my head out of my nether regions, and, voil\u00e0, the unimaginable happened! We bought a condo!<\/p>\n Now, I am trying to \u201cget comfortable with uncertainty\u201d and change (as though change is a dirty word). I got my first test when I figured out that my lovely oak desk, which my beloved father, alav ha-shalom, bought me, wouldn\u2019t fit in our condo. Our second bedroom has a Murphy bed and, well, let\u2019s just say that my oak desk is the size of a blue whale. Living in that big river in Egypt (denial), I hoped against hope that something would happen and either the desk or the bed would miraculously shrink overnight. Not a chance. So, I paid movers to move the desk into the condo and, two weeks later, I paid them to move it to the SPCA Thrift Store. And, while I tried to heed my late father\u2019s advice to \u201ccry over people, not things,\u201d I failed miserably. I had a full-on, deep-dish cry-fest after dropping off the desk. All I could do on my drive home was to talk to my father\u2019s spirit and tell him I love him, and tell him how much I miss him, and how much it meant to me that he got that desk for me specially.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I had to do something to honour my father. So, I decided to toast him. Knowing he liked Cutty Sark Scotch, I spent the next hour driving to three different liquor stores to find it, and was finally successful. It was only then that a sense of calm came over me. Maybe it was the Scotch. Maybe it was my dad telling me it was OK to cry over him. Whatever it was, the desk is now in its new home. And so am I. And both of us are very happy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And I finally have a big kitchen, in-suite laundry, hardwood floors and I don\u2019t face south.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Shelley Civkin<\/b>, aka the Accidental Balabusta, is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the <\/i>Richmond Review. She\u2019s currently a freelance writer and volunteer.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Living in a condominium steps away from the Seawall and the marina is surreal. (photo from flickr.com\/photos\/nuntz) Nobody would deny that the concept of a new home is exhilarating. It\u2019s the packing up a lifetime of belongings, and having to sell and give away a plethora of things that plunges you into ice-cold reality. 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