A happy working vacation and a housing dilemma

I just got back from almost a week with my significant other at our old house. I was helping said S.O. clear the basement so the house can be put on the market. We went through boxes, made trips to the dump, took other stuff to Goodwill and made some real progress on clearing the clutter and reducing what we'll eventually have to move. And we actually had fun (sort of) doing it. We enjoyed each other's company, we didn't snipe or complain -- it was just how you'd like a vacation to go.

We also did a couple of fun things together. We went out to dinner at a nice place on the water the first night, and we watched things my partner had recorded on T.V. at night. I played the piano a little, we ran the dogs, it was good.

Which makes me think expectations influence our experience a lot. I did not expect the week to be anything particularly special, except that we would be together, working on a joint project. And somehow because there was no pressure for the time to be "special," it was. We were productive, and I was very aware of feeling close.

Which, of course, made it hard to come back to Worcester. I did have a sort of epiphany, though: the fact that we were sad about parting meant we'd had a good time being together. Better that than to be secretly relieved to be leaving.

I keep thinking about this question of a house for us in Massachusetts. If I buy it before the other house is sold, there's no way to know when my S.O. will be able to move in with me. If I don't, we may end up house hunting under pressure when the other house finally does sell. For me, it comes down to a question of how much I trust my partner to do whatever it takes to sell the old house so we can be together.