POST MARGARET COLLPASE

Now

The house is on the market.

Viewings come and go.

I straighten cushions. Wipe surfaces. Open windows. Then I sit and wait.

After they leave, everything goes back to normal. Same rooms. Same silence.

There are days where I don’t speak to anyone.

Not because I’m avoiding people. There just isn’t anyone to speak to.

The house is tidy. It works. Nothing is falling apart. It just doesn’t feel like mine in the way I thought it would.

I walk from kitchen to living room to bedroom and back again.

Time moves, but not much changes inside these walls.

When the phone rings, I look at it longer than I used to.

Sometimes it’s the agent.

Sometimes it isn’t.

Evenings are the longest part of the day.

The house sounds different at night. Every small noise feels amplified when you’re the only one there.

It’s for sale.

I live in it, but I am already half out of it.

That’s where things are.

 

 

Living Here While It’s For Sale

I have been in this house for seven months.

It has been on the market for a few weeks.

There’s a difference between the two.

The first few months were about trying to make it work. Arranging things. Telling myself it would settle. It never quite did.

Now it’s for sale.

That changes how I move in it.

I keep it ready. Not obsessively. Just aware that someone might walk through the door at short notice. Cushions straight. Surfaces clear. Windows opened before I leave for a viewing.

Then I come back.

Same rooms. Same layout. Same quiet.

I know I am done here.

That part is not uncertain.

What is uncertain is how long I will still be inside it.

Seven months feels longer than it is. The days repeat in a way that stretches time. Morning coffee in the same place. Same light through the same window. Same walk from kitchen to living room.

There are long stretches where I don’t speak to anyone.

The silence isn’t peaceful. It presses in. I hear the small sounds of the house more than I used to — heating switching on, floorboards, traffic in the distance.

In the evenings it feels heavier.

I sit in a house I am preparing to leave, waiting for someone else to decide if they want it.

I am ready to be out.

The house just hasn’t caught up yet.

 

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