This is the last night in our home
This is the last night in our home
This is the last night in our home
This is the last night in our home
This is the last night in our home
Unfortunately, saying it over and over doesn't make it feel any more real...
Of all the things about moving to another continent, another country – the thing that is bothering me the most right now is leaving my house. I love the transformation that takes place as you live somewhere. You begin by needing to try every light switch before you find the right one, waking up to all the creaks and noises a house makes when it settles down for the night and feeling like a stranger inside of the unfamiliar walls. There is always a moment (invariably in the middle of the night) when you realize that you have just gone to the bathroom, gotten a new roll of toilet paper from the linen closet, let the dog out, got a drink in the kitchen and straightened all the cushions in the living room all completely in the dark. You know this place – every creak on every stair, every oddly shaped shadow… You have a moment where you acknowledge that your house just became your home.
I’ve lived in many places throughout my life. I lived in a dining room with curtains for door, I slept in an armchair for a couple weeks and I have even slept in my car. Even though I’ve moved a dozen times and had multiple apartments/living arrangements, I have only ever had two “homes”. My childhood home held a million happy memories – even the trees in the woods had special stories and memories attached to them. After Mom died and we had to sell the house, I was able to visit it for one last time. It was completely empty and it had been repainted. I felt very little sadness walking through each room… It was just a shell - just a house. Once you took my parents and their things out of that house it ceased to be a home.
I was immediately on a mission to recreate that feeling of history, that feeling of roots dug deep. I was only 24 when I closed on my house. I walked into that conference room with a fresh pen and proceeded to sign my name over and over on what felt like hundreds of papers. It was the most important thing I had done in my life up to that point. (Soon to be eclipsed by getting married) This home was filled with a mix of mine, his, my parents, his parents and mostly ours. It’s been very very hard seeing our things sold, packed and given away. The rooms are eerily empty and I am starting to not recognize my home anymore.
It’s equally hard (if not harder) to imagine other people’s things in places where mine always were. What I have always referred to as the “back bedroom” was always meant for a nursery. Every time I walked into that room I pictured a crib, a rocker, a baby… Someone else is turning that room into a nursery for their little baby now and when I walk in I feel an absolute sadness.
Maybe it’s time to just start thinking of it as just a house again… instead of My Home…
This is the last night in our home
This is the last night in our home
This is the last night in our home
This is the last night in our home
Unfortunately, saying it over and over doesn't make it feel any more real...
Of all the things about moving to another continent, another country – the thing that is bothering me the most right now is leaving my house. I love the transformation that takes place as you live somewhere. You begin by needing to try every light switch before you find the right one, waking up to all the creaks and noises a house makes when it settles down for the night and feeling like a stranger inside of the unfamiliar walls. There is always a moment (invariably in the middle of the night) when you realize that you have just gone to the bathroom, gotten a new roll of toilet paper from the linen closet, let the dog out, got a drink in the kitchen and straightened all the cushions in the living room all completely in the dark. You know this place – every creak on every stair, every oddly shaped shadow… You have a moment where you acknowledge that your house just became your home.
I’ve lived in many places throughout my life. I lived in a dining room with curtains for door, I slept in an armchair for a couple weeks and I have even slept in my car. Even though I’ve moved a dozen times and had multiple apartments/living arrangements, I have only ever had two “homes”. My childhood home held a million happy memories – even the trees in the woods had special stories and memories attached to them. After Mom died and we had to sell the house, I was able to visit it for one last time. It was completely empty and it had been repainted. I felt very little sadness walking through each room… It was just a shell - just a house. Once you took my parents and their things out of that house it ceased to be a home.
I was immediately on a mission to recreate that feeling of history, that feeling of roots dug deep. I was only 24 when I closed on my house. I walked into that conference room with a fresh pen and proceeded to sign my name over and over on what felt like hundreds of papers. It was the most important thing I had done in my life up to that point. (Soon to be eclipsed by getting married) This home was filled with a mix of mine, his, my parents, his parents and mostly ours. It’s been very very hard seeing our things sold, packed and given away. The rooms are eerily empty and I am starting to not recognize my home anymore.
It’s equally hard (if not harder) to imagine other people’s things in places where mine always were. What I have always referred to as the “back bedroom” was always meant for a nursery. Every time I walked into that room I pictured a crib, a rocker, a baby… Someone else is turning that room into a nursery for their little baby now and when I walk in I feel an absolute sadness.
Maybe it’s time to just start thinking of it as just a house again… instead of My Home…
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Oh, Mimi.
What is that old, awful song lyric from the 90s? "This house is not a home, without you...." Wherever you and Joe find each other in the other's arms, that is home. Be it in Sydney, Kentucky, Kalamazoo, or a cardboard box.
You are not losing your home, you are adding another place to the list. So even though you are leaving, look at it as an opportunity to cleave to each other in a way that perhaps you have never had to do before. Easier said than done, I know...
Beautifully written post, Mimi. I enjoyed every word of it - even as i ache for you . . .
Theresa
Thanks Megs & T,
I'm sad about it; but almost too tired at this point to care about anything. I am having horrible insomnia so I just kinda drag around all day on caffiene and adrenaline getting everything done. With every room we clean and move our stuff out of, it feels less and less like our home... So, I guess it's not too sad :|
Love you guys - you have Skype set up right?
On our ninth move I woke in the night and could not place what city I was in, what the name of the street was or where the bathroom was...now, that was weird! Grammie's slogan that she passed on to me in one of our moves was: "Bloom where you are planted." or transplanted, as the case may be! love you, auntie dia
That Grammy was a smart lady Aunt Dia. I am taking two mantras with me on this move... Grammy's "Bloom where you are planted" and from Annmarie, "Be kind to Yourself!"
Love you~