Dream a Semi-Detached Dream

Buying. Selling. Losing. Winning.

This year, we accidentally sold two houses on the same day.

Originally, we tried to sell just our cottage with a realtor who dedicated herself to a long con. For weeks, she pretended to hire a drone photographer who continuously cancelled due to “high winds”.

Needless to say, like the lack of aerial footage, no deals materialized.

Eventually, we took it off the market and listed our Toronto house instead.

Selling would offer more breathing room and reverse the inroads we’d made towards becoming “storage locker” people.

Note: As of July 24, 2025, we’ve terminated our Storage Access contract. We sold all items en masse to a pair of Christian newlyweds. Our junk now lives in God’s grace.

Our Toronto house got the typical city hoopla and sold within a couple of weeks.

This was expected.

The unexpected was an offer on our no-longer-for-sale cottage.

Both Toronto and the cottage ended up selling minutes apart.

This auspicious double-closing date became my focused target. It marked the end of the race. It was earned permission to take a breather. To quit, sit, then refit. It was the long-awaited opportunity to bet on myself and ditch my conventional set-up.

But as the date rolled around, everything remained status quo. Ripe with opportunity to serve uproarious “fuck yous”, I kept putting along. It was winter, everything slowed down, and nothing felt inflammatory enough to act. And so, I didn’t.

Instead, I hot yogaed. Thrift stored. Blew through vacation days. Sunk benefits into orthotics. And attempted to embroider hats.

Winter turned into spring.

My “new life” date got bumped, then bumped again.

And in this window, like any vulnerable person in Realtor recovery, new house listings began to take hold.

Despite deleting the app and submitting my photo to HouseSigma Anonymous, I could feel myself falling down the rabbit hole. And once the tap turned on, the floodgates opened.

Online trolling turned into troll-under-the-bridging inside Toronto’s cheapest-finest.

Instead of bravely exploring the unknown, I doubled down on well-trodden territory (North of Queen, East of Lansdowne, South of Davenport, West of Shaw). Rather than protect the potential for new things, my actions showed determination to re-up on my supply.

I branded any impending purchase as locking in a new project while I was still mortgageable. I had to buy a house before discovering what a post-burnout me could look like!

And like everything in life, wherever we place our attention grows.

After touring a dozen houses, we walked into one that didn’t deliver a shart pain to the gut (my tell for if a home is habitable). Red flags were overlookable, boxes were ticked, and it didn’t reek of eau de sadness.

In fact, the house smelled like soft-serve ice cream with metallic undertones—the precise aromatic DNA of every Dairy Queen known to man.

So, ahead of the market downswing, we, along with nine other groups, put in an offer.

After a round of back and forths, we got the house in what has been dubbed “2025’s final bidding war”.

The night our offer was accepted, I couldn’t sleep. The next night, I couldn’t sleep either.

Every version of “What have I done?” haunted me. I fantasized about the deal falling apart. I googled if side deals could be struck with the next highest offer. I bartered, begged, and horoscopped.

However, I knew that to avoid financial ruin, we’d have to go through with it.

I was mad at myself for letting it go this far and disappointed that I couldn’t accept the gift of simplicity. Instead of exploring less, I hoarder-style stuffed the joint. I opted for more stress, drywall dust, and hacking it together with everything we have.

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A few weeks ago, we got the keys to the new house.

While I wish I’d chosen space over locking in a project of multi-level, wall-to-wall ceramic tile proportion, I’m okay with it.

I believe most mistakes can be made good on, and that dwelling on “what could’ve been” is one of our most boring, uncreative forms of torture.

I also think that we don’t know everything. And that life, whether we’re ready or not, will give us what we need.

The morning after we officially got the new house, I was fired.

Less than 24 hours after my “need to be mortgageable” excuse evaporated, the jig was up.

As they say, ask and it is given. I asked, and it was given over Zoom by a member of HR impersonating a funeral director.

It was short, sweet, and solemn.

I had flirted with the sale date as my new beginning, but instead, got the buy date. I bought my freedom.

The layoff also happened on what would’ve been my Grandma Norman’s 97th birthday. She was our fearless matriarch with a stubborn grit, defiance, and “fuck em” mantra.

While we don’t know what the future holds, we can learn to trust more in divine timing, and ourselves, and not let fear dictate next moves.

If we can do things like manifest a semi-detached house and a severance package on the same day, maybe we can apply this to something bigger.

But first, we’re going to have to give ourselves the space to dream.

Then, we need to believe in ourselves enough to act and stop making our dead Grandma do the handiwork.

We’re only a few “fuck em’s” away from places we’ve never been.