the bubble, deflating

Having heard about it on NPR and read about it in the New York Times, I now see evidence of it all over my neighborhood: the housing bubble is bursting. If not "bursting" at least it's deflating. My thrivingly gentrified, Northeast Portland neighborhood is full of recently snatched up and newly renovated bungalows that have been sitting still while their values have been skyrocketing out of all proportion. That is, until now. Over the past week, "for sale" signs have sprung up all over like the late-season sunflowers that proliferate in this 'hood. Looks like the fun stops here. All those folks who moved in fast and hoped for a windfall in such a crazy market are now trying to get out quick while they can still, with a straight face, ask for upwards of $400,000 for a three-bedroom craftsman bungalow in a neighborhood now being called the "Alberta Arts Discrict" (not the "you'll get shot by gangs" district of ten years ago). Good luck, folks.

A year ago, I was ostensibly a "homeowner." I never really felt like *I* owned the house, but I was (also ostensibly) married to CB then and she owned the house and if that didn't exactly make me a true "homeowner" it at least made me *not* a renter and as close to a homeowner as I had ever been. I contributed money toward building the deck and installing a woodstove. I worked in the yard and garden. I helped plan future renovations. I daydreamed about new paintjobs and construction. I eyed the house's increasing value with quiet satisfaction. If I didn't always love my relationship, I *always* did love my house.

Now I live in a rented basement and any understanding I'd had of what my future (near and distant) might hold has scattered to the four winds. Despite the profligate "for-sale" signs bearing ever-decreasing asking-prices, I no longer eye-ball the houses in my neighborhood and imagine myself as a homeowner again. The shine is off that old dream. Nothing is certain. I know only that I want to leave Portland in the Spring and look for clues to my future happiness elsewhere. It's like I'm on a global scavenger hunt. The next clue is across an ocean and until I've found and examined it, I can't know what next thing my future holds. It is confusing and frustrating, but also, behind all that, thrilling.