On fate, fierce belief, and finally coming home
There are things you hope for. Things you wish for. Things you want so badly that you convince yourself they might happen.
And then there are things you just know.
I knew about the house almost immediately. I remember standing in the kitchen during our first visit and feeling something I couldn’t quite explain. I had walked through plenty of houses before, imagining furniture arrangements and mentally calculating what I could afford. But this was different. I could see us living there. Not hypothetically, not someday, but actually living there. I could see our lives unfolding inside those specific walls.
Caleb and Holden chose their bedrooms that very first night. And somewhere between the kitchen and the upstairs hallway, I decided something, too.
This was our house.
I believe, at least to some extent, that certain things are meant to be. That sometimes life puts something in front of you for a reason. I don’t necessarily believe everything happens for a reason, or that wanting something badly enough guarantees you’ll get it. I’ve lived enough life to know better. But I do believe there are moments when something feels so unmistakably right that you have to pay attention.
And this was one of them.
Unfortunately, the universe apparently hadn’t consulted the USDA.
In August, our offer was accepted. Our contract was signed. We were moving forward with all the excitement in the world. And then the appraisal came in shockingly low. The numbers weren’t working, our plans came crashing down, and decisions were being made by people I’d never met.
For weeks, everyone around me was gently preparing me for disappointment. My real estate agent told me we might have to let the house go. My mother encouraged me to start looking at other options. Everyone was trying to protect me from getting hurt. I understood that. They were being reasonable, and there were plenty of reasons to believe they were right.
But I kept telling them the same thing.
This is our house.
I said it when things looked promising and when things looked terrible. I said it through tears, sleepless nights, endless phone calls, and days when I could barely concentrate on anything else. I wasn’t calm. I wasn’t particularly optimistic about the process. I was scared, exhausted, and occasionally convinced I was going to lose my mind.
But somehow, underneath all of that fear, the certainty remained.
And because I believed it, I fought for it.
I challenged the appraisal. I compiled sixteen pages explaining why I believed it was wrong. I questioned errors, researched comparable properties, made phone calls, sent emails, and kept pushing when the answers weren’t coming. I became relentless in a way that probably surprised some people, although anyone who knows me particularly well might argue otherwise.
I could fight the numbers. I could question the process. I could advocate for myself. What I couldn’t do was control the outcome.
That was the hardest part.
While I was fighting to save the deal, the sellers relisted the home and held two more open houses. I had to sit back, sometimes in tears, knowing that strangers were walking through the rooms my boys had already claimed as their own. People were opening closets, looking out windows, and imagining their own furniture in the spaces where I had already imagined ours.
In my mind, Caleb and Holden’s bedrooms had belonged to them since that first evening. I knew which room would be whose. I had already started thinking about beds and dressers and the little details that would make those spaces theirs. And now other families were being invited to imagine the very same thing.
It was agonizing. I knew the sellers had every right to protect their interests, just as I was trying to protect mine. But understanding something logically doesn’t make it hurt any less.
More than once, I wondered whether I was being foolish. Whether I was so attached to the idea of this house that I had lost the ability to see the situation clearly. I wondered whether everyone else could see something I couldn’t.
But every time I tried to imagine walking away, something in me resisted. How do you give up on something when every part of you is telling you that it belongs in your life?
I couldn’t. So I kept going. I sent email after email. Made call after call.
And then came the signs.
Twice, in two completely different places, I happened to notice street signs for North Street. Another time, I saw the words Lee Roy somewhere unexpected. Each time, I smiled to myself.
It’s a sign.
I know there are North Streets everywhere. I know coincidences happen, and that our brains are particularly good at noticing things we’re already thinking about. I understand all of that perfectly well. But I also believe there’s room in life for a little magic. For the possibility that not everything meaningful needs to be explained away. Maybe those street signs were nothing more than coincidences. Maybe they were little reminders to keep believing. I don’t know, and I don’t particularly need to.
I liked thinking the universe was quietly agreeing with me.
The strange thing is that my certainty never made the experience easier. I think, in some ways, it made it harder. If I had believed this was simply a nice house that I might or might not get, perhaps I could have accepted the possibility of losing it more gracefully. But I didn’t think it was simply a nice house.
I thought it was ours.
And every setback felt like someone was trying to take away a future I had already begun to see.
I thought about the boys upstairs. I thought about Christmas mornings and birthday dinners and evenings when we’d all be home, doing our own things under the same roof. I thought about having a place that belonged to the three of us. A place where we could settle in, spread out, and finally stop living in anticipation of the next chapter.
I had spent so much time imagining that life. And for the first time, I could picture exactly where it would happen.
I don’t think believing something is meant for you means you can sit back and wait for it to arrive. Sometimes you have to work for it. Sometimes you have to make yourself heard. Sometimes you have to challenge an appraisal, compile sixteen pages of evidence to support your case, and hope that the people making the decisions will listen.
And sometimes, after you’ve done everything you possibly can, you have to accept that the rest is out of your hands. That was where faith came in for me. Not the kind that promised everything would turn out exactly as I wanted, but the kind that allowed me to keep hoping when I had every reason to be afraid.
Eventually, after weeks of fighting, waiting, and wondering, we found a way forward. The numbers changed. The obstacles that had seemed insurmountable began to fall away.
Last week, I signed an amended purchase contract. The sellers signed it, too. We had already signed a contract back in August, when my offer was first accepted. At the time, I thought the hardest part was behind us. I had no idea how close we would come to losing everything we'd been celebrating.
And now, nearly two months later, we had signed again. A new agreement. A second chance at the same house.
We haven't closed yet. There are still things to finish, and after everything that's happened, I'm reluctant to declare victory too soon. But the deal is back on track. The house I had been told I might have to give up is going to be ours. Again.
For the first time in weeks, I can stop thinking about how to save the house and start thinking about actually living in it. I keep thinking about that first evening in the kitchen. About the boys choosing their rooms. About how ordinary it all seemed at the time, three people walking through an old house, looking at walls and windows and closets.
None of us knew what the next few months would bring. We didn’t know about the appraisal or the open houses or how many times I would cry over a place we didn’t even own yet.
All I knew was how I felt standing there.
I suppose I’ll never know whether this house was truly meant for us, or whether my determination helped make it ours. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was some combination of the two. But I like to think that sometimes, when something is meant for you, you recognize it before you understand how it’s going to happen.
I recognized this house before I knew what it would take to get there. Before the numbers worked. Before anyone could promise me anything. And I held on, not because I knew how the story would end, but because I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t over yet.
I knew it in my bones.
And soon, we’ll be home.
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