When does a house become a home? At first it feels like you are living in someone else’s place and then sooner or later, all of the sudden with a rush of joy, you just realize that it feels like home to you. When does that magical transformation take place? Is it when you first realize that your stuff has a place in the closets? Is it when all of the boxes are empty and put out for recycling? Is it when your pictures are hung on the wall? Or when the wall’s paint colors finally reflect your preferences?
Or is it after you prepare your first few actual meals in the kitchen? Or maybe the sense of being home follows entertaining and welcoming friends to your new place? Is it when you begin to remember favorite moments that took place in this fresh space? Or is it when you walk through the door and see the faces you love happy to see you? Or is it all of the above? The intangible transformation is so difficult to pinpoint...but when a house becomes a home there is no mistaking it.
We put our little house on the market last week. I’m excited for what is ahead, but am feeling a bit nostalgic as I think about leaving these walls behind someday in the near future. When I bought this place, I was a single girl who never imagined owning her own place. It was not in my plan, but I’m so thankful that I took that step and obeyed the nudge to buy it seven years ago. I have loved making it my own, decorating, painting, re-arranging, dreaming, fixing, planting, scrubbing and relaxing. It has been my haven every day for all of those years.
In recent years, I have enjoyed sharing it with Joe and Lily and in his own way, Luke too. I have marked these rooms with laughter and tears, love and disappointment. I feel very different as a person today from who I was when I moved in. I know that transformational growth has taken place within my heart and I cannot help but feel excited and ready for the next part of my journey... and its new setting.
I spent some time last week taking some photographs of practically every inch of this place. I wanted to always be able to remember where we started when we were first married, and also so Lily could look back and see herself living in her first home, knowing she will not remember these sweet days.
As I was looking at my photos (I took a LOT) I realized that some of the simplest ones, are some of my favorites because they hold memories and glimpses of the full life I have been so lucky to live within these walls. Those simple images hold within them so many rich memories...
In looking around our house, it seems strange to have all of the personal items that make a place feel like ‘home’ gone for the real estate showings. It strikes me as ironic that in order for someone to walk into your home and feel like it could be theirs, it has to completely not look like your home any more. So that is where I have been for the past couple of weeks...working on turning our home back into a house. It has been a sad but necessary transition.
As with all changes and when leaving something behind, there is always the hope of what is to come and we are excited to see what happens with this adventure. We wonder where we will be led from here.. and which one of the thousands of houses currently for sale in our city is just waiting to become our home.
Some might say that I get too emotionally attached to a house, but I cannot help myself. A person's home is such a deep reflection of who they are and I will even go so far as to say that a house can almost even become a part of the family...opening its arms and welcoming you in to share life for awhile before you must continue on your journey. That may sound crazy to some of you, but it is truly how I feel about this little place...like it has been a part of my family for the past seven years...and now it is almost time to leave.
So no matter where we end up, I will always love this cozy little place...this place I've been blessed to call home.
