Possession day for our old house is Friday so Shea and I spent a few hours tonight making sure we had completely cleared it out of all our stuff, did a final bit of cleaning, and having a few tears as we locked the door for the final time.
I’m usually pretty sentimental about stuff in general but I’ve been surprisingly unsentimental about this move.
I think a big part of that is this move feels right – the starter house we bought fifteen years ago served us well but it was also a house we bought before I ever went back to school and started earning the “medium librarian bucks”, before we had family, before our life circumstances had changed enough from a couple who were just starting to find our place in the world to a couple that feels fairly comfortable where we are.
There are so many fond memories in our old house of course – watching our kids grow up, completing so many home improvement projects over the years, birthdays and Christmases, standing at the window watching for a taxi to take us to the airport for holidays, BBQ’s and other parties with family and friends, Grey Cup watch parties, endless nights watching movies or hockey games in the basement on and on and on.
But also going into our empty house makes me realise how much of a starter house it was – the accumulated dings in the walls, that cupboard that never closed properly, that wine stain on the carpet even carpet cleaners couldn’t get out, the mismatched light switch, the tangle of unknown wires in the furnace room. Also on and on and on.
So yeah, I had a few tears when we locked that door for the final time. But I’m excited for the next phase of our life and also happy for the young couple who are buying our house and starting out on the same journey we’ve further ahead in following but traveling the same path.
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