It took 3 different dates to finally close on the house, but it officially sold yesterday afternoon. (Why is it so hard to sell a house when you have a buyer in a desperate housing market? Tell me that!) I have mixed feelings about this and thought my dear house deserved a formal goodbye:
It's just a building, I know. But if I had to pinpoint a location, it is where I became an adult. I learned to cook there. I learned to drywall and patch holes and how much work it is to paint the exterior of a house. I discovered my personal decorating preferences. I learned to garden and care for roses there. I discovered how much I love purple tulips and the satisfaction of weeding. It's where I learned to live with others. Where I learned to love people of my own choosing, not just those chosen for me.
In that house, I laughed, cried, studied, worried, played, worked, relaxed, kissed. It's where some of my best memories took shape and my closest friendships deepened. It's where I learned to bury fencing so my dog couldn't dig out of the backyard. It's where my husband and I spent most of our dating time and eventually our first night as husband and wife. My baby spent her first month of life there in the room that we painstakingly scraped padding off the floor of and painted so perfectly- just for her.
I have invested so much of myself in that house. It looks the way it does because that's what felt like home to me when we remodelled it. The scrapbooks and quote book and memories in my heart are mine. But the house belongs to someone else now. I can't go back to that place again and call it "mine."
Another couple is making it their first home and I'm sure it will continue to be a place where memories are made.
You are a good little house. And I will miss you. I'm relieved that after 2 years, you are finally not a burden to my parents anymore, but I'm saddened that you are officially gone, that that chapter of my life is closed. Thanks for all that you taught me and all that you helped me experience. Goodbye, dear house.