Emotionally Invested

Dave tells me I become too emotionally invested in things - so invested that I get too upset when they don't come through.

We had decided to move when our lease expires, on August 31. We want to be within walking distance of L--'s new school, snuggled right in the heart of the French Concession. We want to live in a lane house, a renovated old home located on a lane off of the main street. We spoke with two agents, who showed us a number of homes. We like a number of homes. We told a number of landlords that we like their homes. We heard back from every single one that they were unwilling to hold their apartments until Sep. 1. Two of these went as far as writing a contract, and having Uncle H-- sign off on the paperwork. All negotiations were complete when the landlord informed us that they had rented to someone else - someone able to move in before Sep. 1.

So we will wait a few weeks, and we will look again. Presumably, many of those apartments we liked will still be on the market. Presumably, others that we will like just as well will newly be on the market.

And this is where I am too emotionally invested. Although I recognize that this is not the end of the world, I still feel the weight of depression this evening - after learning that the second home we had negotiated a lease on was given away. This home met each of our criteria beautifully - location, size, layout and access to green space. It may not have been the perfect home, but it was perfectly suitable and I had begun to move us in within my mind. Now I feel as if the rug has been pulled out from under me, and I know that I will have to arrange our move at the last minute.

This weight of depression was lifted at the playground this afternoon, as the girls and I made a new friend. Most of our friends have left for the summer, and we are enjoying meeting new children and moms who are around for the heat and humidity of July. We spent an hour or so with an Indian girl and her mother from Dehli, learned that they live right downstairs from us, and enjoyed watching the girls interact so naturally together.

The balance of this overabundance of emotional investment is that moments of joy come in wonderfully unexpected places and overwhelming ways.