THE END OF AN ERA

Well, someone made an offer on my mother's flat and, as it looked as if we were almost duty bound to accept it, and, after three or four months of brain-scraping jiggery-pokery, it really does look as if we're finally approaching an actual end of an era.

With all of our fingers and toes firmly crossed, it looks as if today really might turn out to be the day we finally complete the sale and, apart from some tiny matters about paying for the decorating of some communal areas, that might finally see an end to this stressful and time-consuming business.

I ought to be quite pleased, of course, but, much like when the offer was made, cogitated over, and accepted, somehow, in some ways, I'm not.

Not because I wanted to keep the place or anything like that, but simply because it's finally shutting the door on a chapter of all of our lives and it finally feels as if there's no going back to a place that I was never really all that fond of, but which meant a lot to my mother, and was where she spent the last dozen or so years of her life, and it was also a place in which I believe that she had at least a few happy memories, and made a few friends.

I know that she doesn't need the place any longer, but, on some level, it still feels like we're going behind her back and selling her home from under her and, even though I always knew that this day would have to come, I spent so many years reassuring her that she'd always have a roof over her head if she hung on to her own home, that it feels very difficult to be the one finally handing over the keys, letting it go, and knowing that it's unlikely that I'll ever cross that threshold again.

I never have liked endings and I'm really not all that good at dealing with them if the panic attacks I've been having are anything to tell by.

And that air of finality also seems very strange to me, not least because, for the first time in over fifty years, my family will have no presence in the area of town in which I grew up. My parents moved there with my sister before I was born, and mum and dad lived in three homes in the general area and, until today, we've always had at least a tentative foothold in that community, but today, that physical connection finishes forever, and the family is now nothing but a memory in that location, because I don't believe that I'd ever be able to afford to live there, even if I wanted to.

Rather ironically, given the way these things are, if, in about ten years, if it turned out that I needed a retirement apartment in that neck of the woods, I'll never be able to afford it, and there I was, handing over the keys to mum's former home at a price far below the asking price, a mere pittance in today's terms, and still having to hand over a cut of that to the "Managing" Agents (whose litany of incompetences have ruined more days than I'd care to think about), Estate Agents, and Solicitors before I can run it all past the taxman and finally sign the funds across to where they're supposed to be.

Still, as we approached "handover" day I still couldn't help but worry that there would be some kind of glitch, some final twist in the tail where, because of the transfer of Executorship, somebody will decide that I'm not actually allowed to sell the place after all, and another round of solicitor's negotiations will have to begin and suck up all of the remaining funds…

Although in some ways I'll be very sad to see the old place go, in others, I really can't wait to be shut of it. Dealing with selling it and the potential complications involved with that has caused more anxiety and rows than almost anything else we've ever had to cope with for quite some time. Furthermore, delay upon delay has found me, time and again, forced to pay out to various people, all of whom feel as if they've had their hands held out for months now.

And still they come...

Sometimes these blow ups have come completely out of nowhere and afterwards I'm bewildered about how we even got into these intense negotiations, but there we have it. These things will happen once you get people and their own various points of view about their own interests involved.

So, all that's left to do now is to read the meters, close the door for the very last time, and walk away, and hope that the old saying is true, that as one door closes, another one will open for you.

Or slam in your face, of course…