Goodbye to Bristol
After four months on the market, we closed on our house in Bristol, Connecticut. A woman from New York City saw it and fell in love with the place. She was determined to make it hers and did everything she could to secure financing. There were a few bumps along the lengthy closing process, but on Thursday, February 5, the papers were signed—and now we no longer own property in the United States. Another tether to the old country has been cut.
You might assume we were purely happy. And in many ways, we are. The burden of the mortgage and the extremely high utility bills is no longer ours. The bank has been paid, and we are free of the loan. That part is a huge relief. However, there is also a sense of sadness.
In November 2018, we began looking for a place to live. We initially explored renting, but no one was willing to rent to people with large dogs. Anything over 30 pounds is considered large. Our smallest Greyhounds is 60 pounds, and we also needed a fenced yard—something uncommon in Connecticut. Eventually, we shifted our focus to buying a home.
Based on the criteria we gave to Julia, our realtor, she sent us links to more than 150 homes. That evening, we sat in front of the computer and played what we jokingly called Tinder: Home Edition. By the end of the night, we had narrowed it down to about 10 houses. A house in Bristol felt right. At that time we didn’t know that Bristol was the home of ESPN and the oldest amusement part in the US.
That Sunday, Julia visited the homes we selected and put us on FaceTime as she walked through them, offering her honest feedback. Some of our favorite moments were when she would walk into a house, turn around, and immediately leave, saying, “You’re not buying this one.”
The house in Bristol was the house. We loved it. We made an offer, and it was accepted. We closed on January 18. That evening, we stopped at Home Depot and noticed trucks loading up with sand for snowplows, completely unaware of what was coming. The next morning, we woke up to nearly 15 inches of snow.
Over the next seven years, we made wonderful memories and built meaningful friendships. We fenced in the backyard so our dogs would have space to run—and run they did. We lost two of our greyhounds while living in that house. We weathered the early years of COVID there. Mikey remodeled several rooms to suit our tastes, and I experimented with landscaping. That first winter, we discovered our love for radiant heat—it felt like you are wrapped in a warm blanket on cold nights. We explored much of New England and returned to Provincetown, Massachusetts, to celebrate our 20th anniversary. And no matter where we traveled, we always returned to our home on Oakland Street.
Of all the houses we’ve owned, this one was my favorite. I truly believed it would be the place where we would grow old together. In time, the sadness will fade, and I will carry only the memories forward.
