So today I finally closed the purchase of my condo... it was sort of like matter of fact - my landlord offered to sell the condo I am living in and it turned out I will be paying less in mortgage and other fees than I paid for rent, so buying it was the right thing to do... I say 'sort of like a matter of fact' because it was still a big decision for the gypsy me... Here I am, not even sure if I will stay in Montreal long enough to see this Christmas... add to it the fact that I am constantly in need of new environments to stimulate me... So I did spend the night before, fretting, crying and just not sleeping...
And that night before, I went out to dinner with a couple of my friends, not to celbrate, but just cos we thought it'd be nice to go have a beer. One of them already knew, and I told the other during the course of the dinner. In recounting why I switched to the 1.5 times higher rate my bank offered me, over the broker who offered me 2.25%, I said how I felt that this broker tried to fool me, and how I felt he did so as his macho side got over him and he thought I was some candy girl with no brains; having felt insulted, I took my business elsewhere, my bank of 2 years, a credit union, Desjardins, overall nice professional people who don't work for a commission, I said "It is sometimes hard to get things done when you are a woman; people think they can just walk all over you because you are stupid, all just because you are a woman"; my guy friend said "well it is also sometimes easier, just because you are a woman"... and I said "yes"... I did agree... Overall, as I have recounted in this very blog before, life is so much easier when you are a woman...
Anyway... fast forward (or just forward) to the day of the sale...
The notary was super nice, he accommodated all my first time home buying fears... I had cried away the night before, while drifting in and out of sleep. And of course my landlord and his ex's parents were nice too (but I did watch as the ex's profits all got slashed away as she wasn't a resident of Canada - she had denounced her residency so as to avoid tax on her apparently amazing income in the Middle East).
But then this evening I went out with a friend... who, to this day doesn't know I bought this thing, and drank whatever worries I had away...
Then I was going to Sri Lanka in a week, so I had lots to take my mind away from the post-buying anxieties of 'OMG what have I done!!!'. It also helped that I actually didn't have to move housesl I was already living there as a tenant... so life continued pretty normally...
But it wasn't until I went to Sri Lanka, that the importance of me buying this place really hit me... To my parents, it was a huuuge deal... I think when I got my PhD they were pretty proud of me... then when I moved to Montreal for this postdoc, even prouder... And then I bought this thing... So for them this string of events, I think, made it possible for them to say something like "see - that's my girl... isn't it everyone's dream to have a girl like her"
I have come a long way from those days when I calculated my life to bring happiness to worldly people... But I am pleasantly surprised how many worldly people I still make happy, albeit, inadvertently.
The biggest purchase I made before this was my car, 6yrs ago, on a loan too, ahead of my friends who settled for less. I made this purchase with 20 times more trepidation than that. I still have that car; sometimes I think of it as my constant companion, seen me through my happiness, my sadness. It has served its purpose well and beyond, in two countries, and done so with minimal bother... Here's to a condo that will do the same...
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