After many years of talking, Tom and I have finally decided to move.  We figured it was about time anyway since we’ve maxed out on the space in our home and are ready for a change.  We originally figured it would take a couple of years to get the house ready to go on the market.  Well, what could have taken two years was actually done in two weeks. 

Once we officially decided to put our house up for sale, we worked like dogs to get it all done.  We had the house painted; carpets re-stretched and cleaned, bought new light fixtures and so on and so forth.  By the time we were done, the house was looking really good.  So good, in fact, that we questioned if we really wanted to move! But alas, we had made our decision and were ready to go.

Once we were officially on the market, we felt it was time to start looking for a new home.  Of all the existing homes we looked at, only a very small handful was even close to making the cut.  And even then, Tom and I couldn’t agree on what we liked and what we didn’t like.  Finally, we decided that we were going to build…again. 

When I built our last house, I didn’t think about what was functional for a family with young kids and oh, let’s throw in a dog.  I wanted fun!  I wanted funky!  I didn’t care about the fact that my house was going to face east.  I just wanted make sure that the loft overlooked the kitchen!  Who would have thought that over a decade later, my kids, dog and I wouldn’t even be able to play outside in the middle of a HOT afternoon due to our WEST-facing backyard?  And what about the countertops?  Neutral colors, you say?  What?  How dare you utter such nonsense!  Give me green with black peppered specks!  Give me pink with white checkered designs!  Oh yes, and there were more.  Fortunately, having “matured” over the years, our next house will be a bit more…can we say, practical?  (Sure, as long as you consider a 6-burner-restaurant-style all-gas-range-with-not-one-but-TWO 22,000 BTU-burners-and-the-range-comes-in-190-colors practical!).

The night before closing, Tom and I did a final check on the house after everything was cleaned out.  Not so surprisingly, a flood of memories came pouring upon me.  Each and every room had a story.  Each one has evolved over the years.  But the room that had, by far, the most memories was my daughter’s room, which had been the nursery for both kids when they were babies.  In this room, I’ve spent countless nighttime hours changing diapers, rocking, soothing, cooing, singing and cuddling.  In this room was where the kids’ lives first began. 

I sometimes wonder if we could ever have the same kind of memories in our new house that we had in our old one.  And will that new house ever truly feel like home?  Then I realize that memories are not necessarily about a place or a building.  It’s about experiences and with whom you share those experiences.  By now, I know that it doesn’t matter where we live or whether our new house faces east or west.  The fact of the matter is our new house will have its own memories, just like our old one did.