IT'S A DAD LIFE:Our house may be up for sale but that doesn't mean we are moving south, writes Adam Brophy
THE HOUSE is for sale, the gaff both our kids were born into, the place we first lived together and then got married, my home for longer than any other place in my lifetime.
It sounds like it should be a wrench but it isn't, I need a change even if it's only to move around the corner. I hear the grass is greener there.
The "For Sale" sign has elicited odd responses. The vague sense of resentment from some neighbours was to be expected; even when there has been nothing but bonhomie on the street, the decision to up sticks inevitably comes across as a poke in the eye to the people staying.
At least I felt like that when others in the vicinity moved. No, the oddest response is the presumption that we're moving south. We've had it from a couple of people, the implication being that we've had our bit of fun, it's time to move back to the homestead and stop messing around. It's rather off-putting.
An uncle-in-law was stirring the pot at a family gathering. "I could never live on the northside," he says grandiosely.
The missus apparently went straight down his throat (unfortunately I wasn't there). "My daughter doesn't know any distinction between different parts of the city and I'd thank you not to prejudice her," she replies. He was only winding her up, and she was being facetiously right-on, but they were both speaking truths.
He probably wouldn't cross the divide (despite having been born and educated on DNZ) even though he'd be closer to work, might have a better house and have easier access to both town and the sea. He'd rather lay down some cardboard in a shopfront on Grafton Street. And the missus shouldn't attempt to buck the stereotype. The north/south divide and associated cliches are burned into the psyche of anyone brought up in Dublin, throughout the country more like. We're all doomed to instantly categorise new acquaintances as oil barons or purse snatchers based on whether their postcode is odd or even.
The daughters, though, are as yet inured to northside nuances and southside sensibilities and only concerned at the idea of moving any distance away. They want to try out a new house provided access to existing friends is maintained.
I remember my mother assuring me that I'd make new friends the first time we moved, and knowing she was spinning a line even then. When you change home at that age you think you'll never replace the perfect relationships you left behind.
They are coming to viewings with us and proving to have a sharp eye. One very popular house in Marino, judging by the numbers trudging through it, was denounced at volume for not having a bath and for the bed linen's lack of panache.
I could only hope the owner wasn't hovering anonymously. Others have been dismissed as "smelly", "pokey" and for daring not to have a shed for their bikes. These declarations are made in full earshot of the estate agent as deal-breakers and we are then expected to leave immediately, outraged.
I have imagined tabling a bid of 20 per cent under the asking price as there were no Dora the Explorer DVDs on the shelves. In this climate it could work.
We have their permission to buy within a half-mile radius of our current house, which doesn't leave a whole lot of scope. If we move further afield we are being pressured to move certain neighbours with us and I don't know how they'd feel about that. To come home and find a removal van loading up their stuff one afternoon, as the elder stands there and calmly explains that they have to relocate to ease her passage.
It's a delicate process, explaining to them that we're selling their home. They seem unperturbed, but there are some telling questions creeping in, like do we come with them. A slight sense of abandonment and dislocation is apparent but they haven't quite realised it yet. They barrel around this neighbourhood like they own the place, and they do, as much as the next man. Whether they'll have such assurance in their swagger wherever else we wind up remains to be seen.
Change can be a curse. We have decided we want to move, but it seems we want to move to where we already are, where we're comfortable and happy and secure. But we still want to go, because we need that change. It's financially costly, emotionally draining and a little irrational.
The work involved in the sales process is immense. The move itself, if it ever happens, is bound to be chaotic. The market is plummeting and we're diving down with it. All for a different ceiling to stare at each night before nodding off.
abrophy@irish-times.ie