Nov 2023
22
Living in Limbo
Highs and lows, self discovery and emotional layers that have pushed and pulled on my mental health. With 1 month until we find out if we officially own this house or not, this 9 months of living in limbo has taught me so much.
Whilst living in my Grandparents house, we always knew we were living in it until the probate had completed and we could official buy my Brother’s half out. That all can take time. Whilst waiting for that all to happen, we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to live in the property to get a feel for the house before we officially own it. Of course the idea also behind this is that we would be keeping the house safe and heated in the meantime. Practically, this all made sense, but emotionally I don’t think I was fully prepared for the life of limbo.
I am someone who loves home decor. I love to plan out a space, it’s usability, design, right down to the styling details. When we first moved into this house in February, there was an opportunity to decorate. As much as I adored my Nanny’s decor style, it wasn’t to our taste and it held too many memories which I wasn’t comfortable living with. It also wasn’t appropriate and in some cases, safe to continue keeping the house as it was when she lived there (sounds crazy to say that, but she didn’t use many of the rooms in the house and her needs were simple, especially when it came to electronic mod cons!) So we got a taste of getting our DIY hands dirty and transforming the house to a liveable level.
This was also a time when I was still grieving for Nanny and it was actually a lovely time in my life to discover more about her and appreciate her talents and taste.
Time passed as we were still waiting on news of probate, and it taught us to lean into being present. All we could do was wait, so why not enjoy our time discovering this new place we have moved to. Let’s plan what we would do to the house and gather ideas on what that process would look like. There wasn’t any time restraints at this point and the effect of a new environment was refreshing. The type of limbo was quite exciting and it felt like a worry free time.
By May Probate had come through and it was time to apply for our mortgage. Again time to wait, slightly nail biting as you being judge of how you manage your money. I’m also freelance, so it’s always an extra lengthy process to get all the info they need. Finally we secured our offer and it goes to solicitors, then the worst happens.
Not to bore you too much, but we then had to go through an unexpected 2nd probate! Which meant waiting 16weeks or more whilst our Mortgage offer was running out and interest rates were on a crazy rise! At one point the rates were 7.5% and my Husband said there is no way we would be able to reapply for a mortgage if they were that high, if everything didn’t go to plan.
I’m a control freak at times and waiting on something is very difficult for me. When a situation is taken out of your hands and you are at the mercy of procedures or solicitors, control is something you don’t have. I’m also a planner, I love to think about the future and what I am working towards. Planning of what our life may look like was torment. I didn’t want to get my heart set on something if we aren’t able to secure the house. This time limbo land was all about worry, coming up with different scenarios depending on the out come.
16 weeks of more waiting and we finally got the paperwork we needed. We are on our last hurdle and we just have a month to exchange! It’s a rollercoaster of emotion just reaching this point, and we haven’t yet reached the finish line. Waiting is one thing, but waiting for answers which can have consequences I wasn’t ready to deal with, really challenged my mental health.
Over the past few weeks I think I have pushed myself to my limits. I have taken more work on to prepare for the possibility of re-applying for a new mortgage and whilst the tension is building of if we’ll exchange in time, I have forgotten to look after me. I’ve dropped the ball on things, my diet wasn’t good and I didn’t lean on my support network, my friends.
I always thought I don’t sweat this kind of stuff. What will be, will be. I learnt a lot of these hard lesson over the 10 years of trying to conceive. What I realised over these 9 months is, just because you can tell yourself it’s going to be ok and it’s not life threatening stress and worry, you have to work on coaching yourself on that fact daily.
Finding gratitude in what we have, like our health, a roof over ours heads (whatever that will look like), my husband & our families health. Yes there will be days of frustration, feeling tiered and over worked, or another hoop to jump through, but nothing that should push you to a dark place of self destruction.
Living in this limbo is difficult but it shouldn’t be at the expense of my health, happiness and all I have built. I’ve been working on putting some good habits back into my life these past two weeks. I’m embracing my love to plan, nurturing my creativity and remind myself when I have a wobble - “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
If you are struggling with stress, anxiety or depression don’t suffer in silence, speak to your GP or you can speak to MIND.ORG
