This week, I moved out of my comfort zone. Actually, I sold it.
I got the text from while I was sharpening pencils with my first graders in Lima, Peru, that someone wanted a second showing of my condo in Chicago, USA.
I didn’t even know that there was a first showing.
But by the time I had walked home, I had an offer, for cash yet.
Geesh. I didn’t even have bus fare that day.
The realtor, Kevin, is someone who lived in the same building I did on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive since the days shoulder pads were the rage, deserves the credit.
I was numb, happy, elated with the news, as preparing for the sale was similar to preparing for that big Thanksgiving meal that’s over before you start. Everyone’s loosening their pants a notch watching the Lions, and the jello salad isn’t even jello yet. Selling these days involves repainting, buffing and apartment stagers to make sure that your 900 square feet look stunning on a smart phone.
I purchased the condo in May of 1993, a few weeks before the Bulls clenched their second of six NBA wins in the 90s. The sale was made final at the Chicago Title Company, deep in the Loop, where I wobbled in too high of heels and too short of a skirt. I had a lawyer on one side, a realtor on the other, and a full fountain pen in my hand.
For the closing this time? I can be anywhere I can find a signal, and a non-damp place to sit.
I haven’t lived in my condo since 2010, the year my X and I traded our normal lives for an unknown adventure, like Pachacamac, Lima. I travelled here with my hiking group there, not even sure where here is.
Google maps is a bit out of its comfort zone, too.
But while I was dropping phones off cliffs in Vietnam and testing my tolerance for intestinal parasites in Southeast Asian, my condo had a life of its own. Two tenants had grandmothers who thought a ghost lived in the bedroom mirror. One tenant (who lasted two EXPENSIVE weeks) used the oven door as a stepping stool. Another broke the toilet seal at the most inopportune time: during a blizzardy Superbowl Sunday. That must’ve been some party. I had to find a plumber to fix it while in China. Round trip flights from China to Chicago have cost less than that bill.
The memories of my condo are like my sock drawer, a colorful and tangled mess, some missing a partner. I see my dad watching folks parallel park out the window in amazement. Or thirty teen girls having a sleepover cramming on every inch of the floor. Or returning to my condo after a sabbatical from advertising, taking part in mission work in a London, where every day stretched me in a new direction, from meeting survivors of bomb blasts to learning how to survive a cricket match without pulling out my eyes, only to be told by my coworkers I missed an amazing summer.
We won the panty hose business.
Fourteen moves later, living quarters ranging from an upgraded luggage closet in China to a loft with a yoga studio and two fluffy cats, I now live in a turtle shell of an apartment in Lima, where my rent and utility bills are less than my monthly assessment was in Chicago.
This is where I live outside my comfort zone, or my shell. Luckily, I have a few friends living outside of theirs, too.
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch
