We have to coordinate a lot of moving pieces right now.

I just got done writing out a couple of paragraphs’ worth of details explaining all the things that need to be done by about a half dozen people in order for us to get our house on the market. Then I deleted the whole thing. The details don’t matter–and they’re pretty boring to read, I might add.

What was important about today was that for a brief moment, I was very aware of how many people’s lives are tangled up in the sale of this one little piece of property–the men doing work on the house, my realtor, her photographer, the woman she uses to clean the house, the families who are looking to buy homes before the school year starts–and of course, my own family.

And each of us has our own timeline, our own priorities, and our own needs. It’s easy to act as if my priorities are the most important, but of course the truth is that we are all interdependent upon each other in non-trivial ways.

It was a gift this morning, when I was trying to coordinate all of these individual timelines, to have that insight–that even though this is my house we are selling, ultimately it is an ensemble performance, not a solo act.