For the past few weeks, every few days, we've invited a few complete strangers into our home for a look. They all have one thing in common: they think they want to buy our house. Buying a house is one of the most personal experiences a couple - or inidividual - will go through in their life. It's right up there with having a child and visiting the proctologist. It's a mystic, ancient dance between current owner and possible future owner and then again between each individual within the family unit. The prospective buyer saunters through the rooms looking at everything carefully, feeling the space, placing themselves within the house as a home. The current owner hangs back a bit, possibly fixes a cup of tea, but is ready to dart out, apparently from nowhere, to answer a question or extoll a particular virtue of the house. Virtue extolled, the owner slinks off to a dark corner to wait and listen. Or, to simply drink their tea and bask in warmth of their home. Their home for now. A home is such a fleeting thing. It's a feeling that grows and warms through time and then, when everything is packed and taken away, it slowly creeps out the door as well. But it follows close behind to pop up wherever it's needed next. Good Omens will be our new home - it doesn't quite feel that way as yet - our house is still our home for now. And, for now we dance the "for sale by owner" waltz with strangers. Strangers who may one day call our home home. Perhaps they can be thought of as guests who stay after we've packed and gone. Thank goodness most of the strangers we've met in our home seem as though they'd make good guests.
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