I am moving. I have
lived in this townhouse for 7 years. I
have been packing, donating unwanted belongings and cleaning for months; these
efforts have intensified the last 2 weeks.
Memories swam around me like fire flies at sunset.
Every drawer emptied brings a new memory: pictures long lost
are now found, theater tickets from a favorite performance, and a sweater thought
lost, finally found. This home has been my solace from many
trials. I returned to my bedroom retreat
upstairs after life altering events. I lay
awake night after night after my diagnosis with stage 3 breast cancer. I wondered how my children and I would
exist. It was a time of extreme
uncertainty. I returned there after every treatment for 2 years: hunkering down
in my bunker with a supply of meds, bottles of Gatorade (the
mere site of Gatorade now makes me ill), a copious amount of pillows and endured with the help of my children.
I took a bottle of champagne home and “cleaned house” to celebrate
my divorce, a process I started during treatment
and finalized at the end of my 2 year run.
It was a giant victory ; Made more victorious that I had accomplished it
during that ordeal and had the fortitude
to escape the abuse. A single woman
alone gathering the strength to do it alone with 3 children under 18, imagining
the future of a positive life… What was I thinking? I made it work better than anything
previous.
My 3 youngest children and I have
built a live here together over the past years.
We huddled together when here when my father died. He used to drop by unexpectedly for visits to
see what we were doing. We knew he was
really coming by to see our German Shepard Kate. Daddy had a soft spot for German Shepherds. I am sure if you look close you can find some
of Kate’s hair somewhere. Kate left us not long after Daddy, 4 years ago.
There were the 4th of
July cookouts we used to have with our neighbors. It was always here because here
because I had the biggest backyard and was closest to the pool. Do you think
they were using me? Well yes, but who cares.
We had always had a good time. I
remember trying to explain to a group of international students about flag
cake: the cake with the blueberries and strawberries? They just didn’t get that we were eating a
symbol of our cake. Crazy Americans.
My 9 year old daughter was toddler in this home. She colored on the walls, learned to swim in the pool and learned to ride a bike behind the house. Her memories are the strongest. This is where her real life memory began. When she is a grown woman she will look back and this will be the first place she remembers. I worked hard to keep the memories good. I hope I succeeded.
We are moving to downtown. A smaller space, I have one less child at
home now and one more graduates next year. When I considered this new home I looked at
the possibilities: downtown, walking distance
to my office, a park/ playground in my back yard and several other perks. I was doing my forward thinking. It all fell into place. It was time.
There is always a time. It is sometimes difficult to look ahead and
see into the future, do the planning, packing and preserving you have to have a
little faith. You have to let some
things go. Let the past be gone and step into a new beginning. There are so many other things that come to
mind when packing up your home and looking back. If you take too much time looking back it
slows down your forward progress. Life
is about forward progress, moving on to new things, improvement. And this is where we are going, forward.
Peace. NEPB
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