A Time for Everything

On April 30, 1986 I passed my first Illinois State Real Estate Test and Became a Licensed Realtor in the Great State of Illinois.  My son was three years old, I'd been away from Corporate customer service and Credit and Collections for three years, and had thought long of what way I could help my husband who was doing carpentry side jobs gain some quality time while I would get back to contributing to the household income, Real Estate I had envisioned would be a good answer to working around a young child's schedule and also my husbands job as a home building journeyman carpenter, it is only fitting yet a fluke that today is my last day licensed as a Realtor, after 26 years of continuing education and oh so many adventures.
So as my son grew, I'd work when he was in pre-school, or for a couple of hours while he stayed with my Mom and Dad who lived in back of us, and at night when my husband was home and fed, and I with a major learning curve did make a success of it to some degree, I became very good at marketing houses, I loved working with sellers.  Buyers on the other hand really lacked discipline on knowing what they wanted, not only in styles whereby the husband wanted a ranch and the wife a 2story, a split worked marvelously for those debating tiers, but people would call you at the office off an ad and after you'd traveled five towns away they would do a drive by the house they wanted to see and decide they didn't like the color of it, and leave you sitting there instead of simply stopping to tell you they'd changed their minds.  Dangers also came with showing property to strangers, holding open houses and getting backed into corners, or down in basements by unknowns, always the end of year report of Realtors murdered across the USA brought thoughts of There but for the Grace of God go I, found trussed up in a closet bludgeoned, or in their own trunk, so yes I really saw the value of home seller, Safety.
And the homes sellers taught me much: Myrtle Whipplewurth was a good seventy five years old when I sold her home, she taught me that cereal could taste good with Orange juice instead of milk, she showed me pictures of my towns major intersections when it was dirt road and farm country and the roads were pretty rutted. She inspired in me more love for gardening and reading and enjoying the natural light a special room in a home can offer (morning light).  She was a lovely lady.
Another couple from a few blocks over found me through my farming the area with newsletters and postcards to sell their neighbors house working closely with her attorney we would discover the women had written 4 different wills, one leaving everything to them...the neighbors, one leaving everything to Illinois Relatives, one leaving everything to Wisconsin, and one leaving everything to animal shelter, it was awesome and yes the animal shelter won out hands down.
A few years later the neighbors came back to find me, they were divorcing, they taught me what not to do if my path ever crossed that road, they were so verbally abusive and angry, always angry their little girl put a sign on her bedroom door saying an visitors were not allowed to yell in her room, it was horrible all the way through closing day, they intermissioned and fought out in the parking lot, we thought it would never end.
Another couple I drove around for 6 months of my life, I was with them the day before my Father's aortic aneurysm burst, I was his fellow gardener, it was August and the plants were very tall and needed staking and tying, he used a heavy sledgehammer to drive the wood into the ground and smoked extra to keep the mosquitoes away while he worked, he collapsed the next day from the aneurysm bursting, it triggered a heart attack, the surgery was successful but the damage to the heart was fatal, a few weeks later those very same 6 month people bought the very first house they ever saw while out looking all those months. I learned money doesn't matter.
Holy Saturday in farmlands instead of dying Easter eggs with my 6 year old, pagers, bag phones, computers, limitless phone calls every day of the week, hours of research, and touring, and setting appointments, cancelling appointments, game players within your own office, threats, demented people crossing your path, back down to safety, yes?  Recessions = great changes in income versus expense.
And then relatives, relatives without ears or listening skills, and all of the fallout that came from that. (People with good listening skills only hear 60% of what is said to them per an A T & T customer service seminar I once attended, mostly due to trigger words already inspiring them with what they wanted answer back.)
It was a long haul.  Slowly I went back into the corporate world, life changes demanded access to more dependable incomes, and benefits as an option, slowly work my way from base pays again to top dollar for the field, until I landed this admin job which has suited me for long time, and so the adventure continues.
I had a very interesting journey, met oh so many people both great ones, and evil & mean, some truthful and others liars, and I learned a lot about what I didn't want to be around, and also the many things I enjoy.
I ran my own business, had quite an adventure, thank you you made me stronger, but I've had enough now.
Good Bye Kathleen M Somerville/Realtor