HOME part 1.

It's the most daunting thing you'll ever have to do. Buying a home. For me it was so much more than the commitment to a loan - money doesn't bother me - it was what that home represents. I'm sure I'll figure it out in time.

My behaviour and my ability to understand it over the past three months has been poor to say the least. Tom and I have fought over small, petty things. I've pushed and pushed much more than usual to try and prove that I am unlovable. But it hasn't worked and tonight I'm sitting in the computer room of our home.

When we started looking for a home Tom and I wrote a list of wants. We argued and disputed about the priority of these wants and then we narrowed down the list until we finally reached an uneasy agreement about what our home would include.

Brick. Three, maybe four, bedrooms. No Garden – we’d make our own. A car port/garage or potential for one. Room for a water tank. Quiet location.

The first weekend was a disastrous success.

Our first appointment, 9am, we arrived early. The agent we had an appointment with decided he’d rather go sailing. So, we were stranded an hour from home without anyone to help us navigate the treacherous housing market.

But, if I’ve learned anything in the past five years of my life it’s that fate has a way of steering me onto the right path.

Tom and I drove to a local lake to try and regroup and formulate a plan to tackle the disaster. We were an hour away from home and there was no point turning around only to have to come back again for our 4pm appointment.

The car swerved and I thought perhaps Tom was returning to the incompetent real estate agency. Instead he circled a roundabout and headed up a side street smiling broadly.

From the corner of his eye he’d seen an open house sign and was following his gut that it would lead to something more.

The house was out of our market. Too small. Too perfect. When we told the agent this she smiled and handed us a list of three other properties that she would make sure we could see.

This woman did more than show us houses. Kelly, a tall, dark haired woman who took Tom’s initial grumpiness with charm and grace, gave us the much-needed guidance to find the perfect home.

We talked, largely about what we’d wanted and she listened intently. She was enthusiastic about our needs, not only making sure she talked us into one of the houses she had to sell.

By 3pm we had seen all she had to offer and stood on the footpath to talk. We told her about the first agent and how daunting it all seemed.

“Look, if I can tell you anything it’s that you’ve got to stick to your guns. There are so many houses on the market at the moment that you don’t have to settle. It’s out there and if I don’t have it then someone else will. But don’t get stressed and don’t think of it as a chore. This is a big thing your doing and above all you’ve got to have fun. I know it sounds nuts but if you put out the right vibe then the right house will come to you.”

We said our goodbyes and made the next appointment but our attitude had changed considerably. No longer were we waiting for the agents to return our calls.

We’d find our own house.

TRAGEDY?

What do you say when a piece of crap dies?

“I’m really sorry. What happened?”

She shrugs her shoulders and I can see she’s getting a little teary. “He just didn’t want to be here any more.”

Her love affair with him is a long story. At first he’d been sweet but after a year, when things got serious and she started talking marriage and babies, he was abusive and treated her like a dog. A man that after two failed marriages and a nasty custody battle had turned bitter and violent.

I struggle to find the good about him. I run through his life and she’s giving me a new perspective to the one she was showing before Christmas.

Before Christmas, before he took the cowards retreat from life, she had told us she was leaving him. She’d told us he had pushed her around, told her that he would never love her as much as he loves his sister and that she was just another slut.

Now he’s a kind and sensitive man who was pushed to the edge by circumstance. The man she says loved his kids and was a sad and frustrated man instead of the arrogant, rude pig she’s been living with for the past year.

But it’s no good. Many people can look at a person after death and only see their good. I can only see who he was not who they’re all wishing he’d been.

However, for her sake, I soften my tone and let her talk without correcting her tainted memory.

“Are you ok?” my concern is for her, not him.

“I’ll be alight. I just need a distraction.”

Part of me wants to recite the post relationship support script. You’re better off without him. He was an idiot and got what he deserved.

But I know I don’t know the whole story.

Maybe he was really a good man. Somewhere deep down. But I didn’t know that man and I’m not going to mourn the loss of someone I didn’t know.