Well, we did it. We finally moved.

Moving house didn’t go quite how we planned, in fact it was kinda downright depressing.

We had wanted to move into our forever home, but we still haven’t found it after about eight loooooong months of looking, so instead, we bit the bullet and moved into a rental this week blerk sigh blerk again. Yep, a dark and dingy rental that is not ours, one that will never be ours and quite frankly one that I would never want to be ours.

I may be stupid or naive, but I had never really expected that this would happen. This transient half way house was never in our plans. But it’s where we live now, at least for a little while.

You know, I was fine with selling our house. We both were. We were so excited about the future and about how we would be moving onto bigger and better things. Such glorious hope.

I was still fine when we moved out our furniture, no problems there, I mean we needed somewhere to sit in this rental home of ours that I still kind of didn’t believe I was moving into.

And then…finally…my husband and I headed back to the home that was no longer our home on that final day to give it a clean for the new owners. And it was the cleaning that broke me.

I walked in our old house first at 9:30am, about 15 minutes before my husband, who had deposited our child with his mother for the day so we could really concentrate on getting the house sparkly and shiny for the new owners.

And from the second I walked in that house, I cried like a baby. I wish I was kidding…I sobbed like a fool for four hours straight. Yes, you read that correctly – FOUR WHOLE HOURS!

Everywhere I looked in that house, I re-lived a beautiful memory.

Like the day we got the keys to that house, my husband and I lay on the carpet looking up at the roof of our lounge-room laughing with happiness. We were finally in our new home and we were finally beginning the rest of our life together. My husband popped a bottle of champagne and the cork flew out of his hand and rebounded off the roof. It left a mark for 9 years until we painted the roof. And even though I could no longer see that mark, I remembered. And I cried for it.

Or like the day we found out we were pregnant. I was upstairs in our ensuite with my husband waiting patiently on our bed whist I took the test. It was positive, and we just sat there on the bed smiling at each other. Another beginning. I remembered that. And I cried for it.

Or like the day we finally brought our new baby home. He would sleep in his bassinet in the lounge-room whilst we stared in awe at his little baby face, unable to comprehend how we could have created such a perfect little human. It still stuns me. And in that same room I remembered his first smile. I, to this day, have never seen anything more perfectly beautiful in all of my life. So I remembered. And I cried for it.

I remember holding his sweet baby body close to us from the early days during my sorry attempt at breastfeeding. I remember the heartache that I felt trying to do it, and both the incredible disappointment and intense relief at deciding to quit trying. Those early memories both heartbreakingly difficult and yet full of love were reflected back at me in those walls. I remembered and I cried for it.

Or like bath time. Since our little one was born almost 16 months ago, bath time has been the best time of our every day. He was the happiest little man in the world when splashing in the water. He would squeal and splash with joy which would light up the whole room. He would stand there laughing whilst pee’ing into the water with so much glee that our hearts would sing. I remembered, and I cried for it.

I was so overwhelmed by those memories and the love that I felt standing there in the middle of an empty house that was no longer mine, and it almost broke me. My heart hurt intensely, because every single piece of that house, every corner, every door, every wall brought back something wonderful, something hard, something that had made our family exactly what it was now, and all of a sudden I wanted to hold onto the house forever. I wanted to take it all back.

Because I now grieved for the life full of memories that I am terrified that I will one day forget, without those walls around me to remind me. And yes, I know that those four walls were just walls. But to me they were the protectors and the witnesses to the amazing life that my husband and I had created and loved with every inch of our souls.

I love those walls. That house will have a piece of my heart always and I know its dumb, but I hope they remember us the way we remember them. I hope some of the love we shared has stayed with that house, to grace the new owners with the same happiness that we ourselves had felt there.

And I hope we find new happiness in a new house soon, wherever that may be…

 

 

Have you found it difficult to move on from your family home, or a certain stage in your life like I did? Tell me all about it in the comment box below so I don’t feel like such a silly fruit loop, grieving for an inanimate object (aka my house) 🙂 xxx

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xxxxx