Homebody & Heart

An Open House, a Handful of Signs, and a Mild Identity Crisis

There’s a very specific moment that happens when you’re putting out open house signs.

You’re usually alone. It’s quiet. You’re slightly early. And suddenly, you become painfully aware that you are a person standing on a street corner, holding an A-frame, trying to angle an arrow just right while cars drive by.

This is when the dissociation sets in.

I didn’t expect this part of real estate to feel so… existential. But here I am, adjusting a sign for the third time, wondering if it’s crooked or if I’m just overthinking it. (I’m overthinking it.)

Nobody talks about this part of real estate. The listing photos and the closing champagne get all the airtime. Meanwhile, here I am at a very public intersection at 10am, sweating through a blazer, fighting a wooden A-frame into submission on a slight incline, silently rehearsing the answer to a question nobody is going to ask, thinking “oh my god they’re looking at me” when of course they’re looking at you, they’re waiting for you to cross the street, you ding dong.

Or worse. Someone you know drives by.

Being new shows up in funny ways. It’s not the big things I thought I’d feel unsure about. It’s the small, oddly public tasks that make me suddenly, painfully aware of myself. Am I placing these correctly? Do people know I’m new? Do they care? Is this what confidence is supposed to look like?

At some point, you realize nobody is actually watching you as closely as you think they are. They are inside their own cars, having their own internal monologue, which is possibly about whether you are looking at them, or about their overdue oil change, or “shoot, I forgot to grab bath bombs and epsom salt, now my toddler isn’t getting the bougie bath he loves, because I am NOT fighting those lines at the store again, can I just order it on Amazon.” You are, at most, a passing detail in someone else’s Sunday.

Love that for me.

Half of the bravery, I’m learning, is just making it easier on yourself. These mornings go a lot better when I’m not digging through my car for my keys or lip balm or a tape measure while trying to look like a woman who has her act together. There are now a handful of things that permanently live in my car, including (but not limited to): chapstick, lipstick, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a change of socks, my kindle (even if I don’t read it, there is something comforting about carrying a book around with you), a tape measure, a screwdriver, a long stick for shielding myself from any spiders or cobwebs I may encounter while searching for a lockbox, room spray, dog poo bags, garbage bags, zip ties, my two favorite pens (because one is never enough), and a journal. Not glamorous. Just practical. (Future me is very grateful.)

The signs aren’t the main character. They’re the supporting role. The setup, the before, where you’re just a person doing your job on a Sunday morning and hoping nobody you went to high school with drives by. The unglamorous middle featuring sweaty palms and reciting square feet and bedroom counts in your head over and over. The after, when you’re picking them all back up three hours later, slightly sweatier, ready to eat anything.

I don’t love doing it. I do it anyway. An Act of Bravery, apparently.

If you see me out there adjusting an arrow for the fourth time, or pretending to take a very important phone call while waiting at a red light at a busy intersection, no you didn’t.