A little over a week ago I said goodbye to the home I grew up in.
I became an adult there. I raised three kids there. I lived there longer than any other place I'd ever lived. Thirty-three years. Over half of my life. That is a really long time to stay in one place.
My husband, Ric and I, talked about moving so many times. Seven years ago we actually sold the house, but the deal fell through on the buyer's end so we stayed. But the desire to move never went away. But it wasn't feasible to move, really, because I was never home long enough to get it on the market and begin the daunting task of clearing out a lifetime of memories and other stuff.
As if the memories could ever be cleared out completely.
In August I finally started a fully remote training job after praying for it for years. That is when we began to get serious, once again, about selling our home. We put it on the market and it was under contract in four days, at a time when most houses in our area were taking much longer to sell, if they sold at all.
We cleared hurdle after hurdle, against remarkable odds, and we closed on both our old home and our new one within a day of each other. The entire process from start to finish took about five weeks. I am still in awe of how quickly we got everything finished.
Only God.
Selling and buying a house are the most stressful things I have ever done in my life. I never want to do it again. It's so expensive and time consuming and it's the worst kind of rollercoaster ride. And that doesn't include the emotional part. I never knew I could wake up in the middle of the night thinking about so many different things. Even that was a first for me, a habitual middle-of-the-night waking overthinker.
Some people may not even consider the emotional factor. Maybe they move like I overthink: habitually. But we are talking about me here. Emotions always can and will come into play. I am learning that that is okay. More than okay, really. It is good and healthy and appropriate.
I wanted to have one last dinner in our home with my kids, but it never materialized. Truthfully, I wanted it to be a mourning party for all of us. I would have loved it if everyone felt the same way about it as me. The truth is, rarely does anyone feel the same way as me on any given topic. My therapist is helping me to see that this is okay, too.
When my ex-husband and I moved to 4375 Ireland Street those 33 years ago, it felt like we were moving into a palace. It was so big and fairly new and had so much potential. We had dreams, like everyone does, of what we wanted it to become, who we wanted to become, while living there. Dreams of a perfect yard filled with roses and several healthy children. An enduring marriage. An Akita named Nero. Hosting friends and making memories.
Some of our dreams were realized while so many others weren't. And all of this was rolled up into one not so perfect round ball of emotion as I said my final goodbye, more than once, a little over a week ago.
I began to grieve in early October while Ric was on a business trip. This was right after we put the house on the market, thinking it might stay there for weeks or maybe not sell at all. I would make my coffee and go sit in the room that served as a nursery for all three kids, watching the rising sun. Later this room would be exclusively my daughter's while her two brothers slept in bunkbeds next door.
Time gives so much perspective.
On those October mornings I thought of the countless hours I spent in that room, still painted pink, rocking three babies on so many sleepless nights. I thought about how I couldn't wait for those early weeks to pass. Now I wished just as hard that the weeks would slow down, come to a standstill. I told God, "If I could hold each of them as babies just one more time." I closed my eyes, willing it to happen, trying to remember the smell of them and how they felt in my arms.
I looked at the window and imagined the rocking chair where I would hold each baby, singing Jesus Loves Me and Rock A Bye Baby nearly every night. Allie would get the bonus Alley Cat instrumental sang to her most nights (for obvious reasons). I remembered the crib against the wall that I reached down into hundreds of times to pick up crying babies in the middle of the night and smiling ones in the morning. So many days and nights were spent in that room. So many memories that I found myself fighting to hold onto.
For some reason, that was the room I lamented in the most in the past weeks. Would've, could've, should've. Sometimes it gets so old, the reruns that play over and over in my head. The overthinking is over exhausting.
During the last few days spent in our home most of the rooms were empty. I visited each one as well as the backyard. Thirty-three years holds so many memories. Some great ones. Some painful ones. But all of which made me into the person I am today, for good or for worse. Everywhere I looked, they came flooding back.
I thought about so many things, as I walked from one room to the next, taking pictures in case someday I forget what it looked like. I had a few meltdowns, the last one in Ric's arms on Sunday afternoon. I grieved the loss like a trooper. I held nothing back. I gotta be me.
Many well-meaning people told me along this journey, when I would say I was sad, that I had much to look forward to. A new home, a new chapter, new memories. That, of course, is true. But in order to move forward, one must look back. At least this one.
It really is okay, I would think and sometimes say to said people, that I feel this way. It really is okay to feel it all. No, really, it is. Embracing it all is fine.
And that's what I did. That's what I will continue to do. When I think about the house that built me.