My husband and I are attempting to buy a new house. We’re actually planning to sell our old dream house for a new dream house – bigger, fancier, with more stuff. Potential buyers are walking through my wonderful house at this very minute, looking at my life, judging my housekeeping, making comments about what they like and what they don’t; what should be changed and what shouldn’t. I feel like I’ve opened my private life up to the world – vulnerable. I’ve made my home an object of criticism.
My house has been a wonderful house for us – we’ve raised five kids there in the last thirteen years (with two still to finish raising, and all the grandkids). It’s a great kid house, with a big yard, and a big circle drive that acts as a raceway for a multitude of bicycles, skateboards, and scooters. My kids don’t want to leave – they say that house contains their childhood memories. They love their house. They don’t even want to put new carpet in for fear it will change their world.
Of course, that’s what my older kids said when we moved there from our first house. But they soon learned to love it – to leave the old in their memory banks, and make room for the new. As I look into her tear-filled eyes, I tell my daughter that all things change – nothing can ever stay the same. Even if we didn’t move , we’d still remodel, and it would look different. She, and all the kids, will always have their special memories. The memories aren’t attached to the house – they’re embedded in their brains forever.
So why do I feel like I’m trading a fat, old, ugly relative in for a younger, thinner, prettier one? Why do I feel like I’m betraying an important part of the family? I never expected to feel this way. But I do. Even in my dreams.
Hopefully, the next family who lives here will appreciate our house as much as we do. It is, was, and always will be the greatest.
And hopefully our next house will be just as great.
