No Apologies and no Regrets.

Silent Witness.

People have asked me many times, “Why on earth did you sell your lovely little house?”

I’m not quite sure where to start. Let me see if I can muster a brief synopsis:

 

The year began auspiciously, I quit drinking and then I lost a lawsuit—the sword of Damocles that had been hanging over my head for the past three years—and I was ordered to pay 95,000 euros. That is not the sort of change most people have in their back pocket, so, thinking laterally, I sold my house.

 

I had planned to live out my golden years in that house, but oddly, selling my comfortable, cosy home, and jumping into the unknown, was rather liberating.

 

At the moment, I am trying to negotiate with the couple who sued me. I have appealed the ruling, without much hope of winning. Apparently, it could take about two years to go through the court system, so I thought I could save everybody some time and stress, by offering to pay them now. Now we are sort of stalemated as the lawyers negotiate. Again, I find that I can neither move forwards nor backwards. The frustration is real.

 

Intertwined with this inconvenience, I am resolutely attending AA meetings every Thursday evening in the historical city centre and learning how to socialise with other people again. Or perhaps, learning for the first time?

 

The ramshackle building is subsiding slowly back into the ocean. You take your health and safety into your hands as you press the grimy bell on the door. It feels vaguely sticky. Someone buzzes you in and, wiping your fingers on the side of your jacket, you push the door inwards. The dark hallway reeks of sewage. As your eyes adjust to the dimness, you shuffle over uneven tiles towards the bockety marble stairs. This building was once magnificent. Now it is not.

 

Upstairs, you wobble along a narrow passageway and into what has become the most welcoming room in all of Malaga city. There are cracks in the walls and the incline of the floor seems to want to throw you out of the rattling windows. The large frail panes look onto what was a very busy street encircling the city centre.  Now it is a screechingly, noisy building site and has been for two years. The two windows are at different heights, and I often find myself mentally trying to straighten the curtain poles. Just above head level, in the corner of the room, is a tiny plant. It is perched atop a single marble shelf and every week its curly leaves curl a little bit more. The plant, alongside the various mottoes plastered on the walls are the silent witnesses to all the pain, joy and honesty that fills this room. I remind myself to bring my watering can next week and give it a drop of care.

 

My first time in this room, my voice quavered as I uttered those charged words. “My name is Mary, I’m an alcoholic.” Then I cried a bit. Now, it has become second nature and I no longer feel the burning shame and embarrassment of admitting my shortcomings in public to a group of my peers. 

 

The group members enfold me, and we become one.

 

I sold my house in March and then I needed to find somewhere else to live. One big problem: my money was halved by the lawsuit. Properties in Malaga are not cheap, even less so in the area where I wanted to live, which is technically City Centre, so I had to think outside the box once again, and I bought a commercial premises, or a ‘local’, which has to be renovated.

 

The advantages are 65 sqm of floorspace and towering ceilings. I’m not sure if the three toilets and the one spectacular urinal are an advantage, but they certainly add character. The five-metre-wide frontage is all glass, and although it needs an overhaul, it was one of the selling points. On the downside, I am not sure if I am going to have anything left after paying my debts and the taxes that buying and selling incurs in Spain. So, I may live out the rest of my years in an unfinished box with big windows, very high ceilings, and a glorious urinal.

 

My new friends in AA all nod with understanding as I explain my housing predicament in weekly instalments. It puts things into perspective when others in the group talk about low moments in their own lives when they too lost homes, relationships, and self-dignity. I realise how lucky I am, and I am learning to accept the things I cannot change.

 

In the meantime, I am renting. Rental in Malaga, like most cities, is high and the flats at the lower end of the scale are pokey and infested with cockroaches. After a few grubby viewings I washed myself down and put on my thinking cap yet again.

 

One of the first premises I viewed to buy, was enormous, on a great street, and full of potential for conversion into a beautiful home. I loved it and fantasized for a while about where I would put the kitchen and how I would divide the space etc. but then I sighed and had to message Pablo, the owner, to tell him that I could not afford it. However, when I reached a stone wall looking for a flat to rent, I thought of Pablo’s local again. I messaged him one evening and asked him if I could rent it. He said, “yes.” So, we arranged another viewing, and discussed terms. We shook hands and I walked away with the key to my home for the next few months.

 

There are several advantages to this place – first of all it is big and there was nothing in it. This solved the problem of paying for storage for my furniture – I just moved it in – so I am, more or less, living in my own home inside of another space. It smells the same and I have all my possessions to hand. 

 

Secondly, the extra space has given me the opportunity to have a section where I can sort through all my boxes of stuff, and I have been doing a ruthless decluttering. Thank you, Marie Kondo!

 

Point number three, it is just across the road from my old house – so my friend, Michael, and I, spent a couple of weeks moving a load or two of boxes and the smaller items of furniture every evening. Michael brought his hand-truck, and I pushed my famous pram. On the final day of the move, I hired my builder and his worker to lift and carry the larger items across the road. The only thing we couldn’t remove was the bed base, as it would not fit down the stairs – an angle grinder put paid to it. I am sleeping on my old mattress on the floor at present, but when I move, I plan to buy a new, single mattress, to suit my single life. Beds are overrated.

 

The downsides are negligible: There is no bathroom, just a toilet and a sink. But I always hated the shower in my last house, so rarely showered anyway – it is easy to wash yourself down with a washcloth and when my son was here, he told me about a showerhead to attach to a tap beneath the sink. That has been a game-changer. 

 

There is no kitchen either, but I bought a jug kettle and a hotplate, and I wash the dishes in a large, pink, plastic basin.

 

Oh yes, the cockroaches were a bit of a problem too, but two pool noodles and a roll of packing tape have covered all cracks and openings in the walls and ceiling, so now it is just me, the Westies and the ants, which I tolerate as they are great at cleaning up all the crumbs that I and the Westies drop on the floor.

 

The timescale has been swift, from putting my lovely home on the market in February to agreeing the sale in March and proceeding to final contract at the start of May. While I was selling, I was also hunting all over Malaga, looking at apartments as well as commercial premises, and considering other districts to live in. I put in a lot of steps.

 

I found my new home with the help of a dear new friend, Antonio, who came into my life it would seem, to help me find a home. Just two weeks after selling one house, I bought my new one. A bonus is, it is also only around the corner from here, so moving in, when the time comes, will be easily accomplished, using a hand truck, a pram, and my friend Michael.

 

There was a good group present at our last weekly meeting, and I could hardly contain myself when my turn came to say, “I’m Mary. I’m an alcoholic.” I was nearly bursting, waiting for the moment when our group leader asks if anybody is celebrating an AA birthday. I hopped off my chair. “Me, me!” I beamed from ear to ear. I got a round of applause and at the end of the meeting I was presented with a blue medal with 6 months written on it.