We Slowly and Quietly Let That Dream Die
The search for a house should really be something that feels exciting, and it did at first despite having just gone through one less than a year ago.
“So over the course of two weeks, we slowly and quietly let that dream die and pretended to our realtor that we had not been so passionate about what was surely one of the worst ideas we’ve ever had.”
I spent a lot of time before we moved reading the same copy and pasted information on different websites about Cincinnati’s neighborhoods. Every person we’ve ever met was sending us listings. Some of them $200,000 over our budget, others characterless homes that appeared to glorified garages from the outside, still others fixer-uppers that exceeded the amount of energy a person my age has to give to a home whilst also starting a brand new job. But surprisingly, for the most part, they were spot on, and only slightly exceeded our budget.
After our first home shopping trip, but while we were still in Louisville, I suddenly said to Mike, “I think I want to live in the city!? Why not?” It was important for me to have something walkable. When we lived in the Highlands, I’d surprised myself by creating such a strong sense of community that it actually changed my sense of safety and wellbeing, and to this day still affects the neighbors (I’m saying this because they told me but also because I’m bragging), that it became one of the most important things to me in our next living situation.
When we visited the area downtown known as Over-the-Rhine (OTR), I fell in love and thought we’d be perfect for (small) city life. But after we looked at a number of condos, some of which we fell in love with, we realized that 1) we did not want to pay $200-$500 in condo fees a month, 2) we had way too much outdoor furniture, games, speciality ovens and hot dog steamers to live somewhere with no outdoor space, and 3) our 14-year-old toothless yorkiepoo would be a pain in the ass to take down a flight of stairs and then down 3 more flights/an elevator to go outside to use the bathroom 2 dozen times a day.
So over the course of two weeks, we slowly and quietly let that dream die and pretended to our realtor that we had not been so passionate about what was surely one of the worst ideas we’ve ever had.
But to satisfy your curiosity, here is one of the places that we thought we really liked before we realized we were too old for this shit: