I have never been one to get too attached to a physical building as my home. My family moved every four years or so when I was young and my parents taught me that wherever my people were, that was my home. I love to travel, and have made happy memories all over the world with the important people in my life.
But we just sold the house we raised our children in and it's brought up so many conflicting feelings. We bought this house in a flurry. I was six months pregnant with my youngest and we lived in a beautiful house with a million stairs and a very impractical floor plan for a new baby. So we chose a house with a big back yard, good mill work, wood floors, and a bedroom for everyone. It was never my dream house, but it was the house that I got to live my dream in. We brought Katie home to that house. We had all the happy, sad, frustrating, and triumphant moments that a family has in that house.
I've been badgering JP to sell it for the last few years as it's started to empty out with the kids going off to college one by one. It seemed unnecessary to me to have all that space that we didn't use. And I don't get attached to houses.
Now that we have sold it, I realize that for the first time in my life I feel sentimental about a house. I still believe that my home is where my people are, but I will miss coming home to the place where so many milestones happened. And I worry a little bit that the kids won't visit as much because they don't have their old home to come back to.
Now I live in a very modern apartment building in downtown Oakland with floor to ceiling windows and all my pretty mid-century and vintage things around me. When Katie was helping me move she asked "will you be lonely here Mom?" In my heart I know that as long as I have my people, I will never be lonely. But maybe. I guess we will see.
Selling the house feels like it has officially closed the raising young children chapter of my life and propelled me forward into a new phase of life that I am kind of ready for, but not quite.
So I'll say good-bye to the old house, shed a few tears, and make a new home here in Oakland where my people and I can make new memories and I can continue to build adult relationships with my children. But I will always have a special place in my heart for that house that wasn't my dream house, but where so many dreams came true.