Eating an elephant

If you haven't done it before, let me tell you something about life (said the grouch). The initial glee of buying an apartment very quickly changes into sheer panic.
Pure, unadulterated, panic.

For no one told us when we put an offer on the house that we'd also need to find a lawyer. And haggle for mortgages. And make sure the brokers were on top of their stuff. And still continue normal lives at work each day. Well, maybe they did tell us all this, but they never warned us that it would be impossible.

I mean, doesn't life stop to give you the time you need, when you want to buy a house? Doesn't anyone teach you a more efficient method of coping than with a thousand en-scribbled post-its stuck all over your desk?

Today was reserved for sulking about the fact that co-ops just dont' seem to play by the mortgage rules that any other normal purchase. Tomorrow will be reserved for sulking about tomorrow's dilemma.

But I'd once read, as a child: the way to eat an elephant, is one bite at a time.

(although for most of my life, I took the adage quite literally, and applied it to every voracious meal I ate).

But today, for the first time, we're genuinely eating an elephant. Panickingly (and yet excitedly), one bite at a time.