Saying Goodbye

So, it's been about a month since we officially began to live in our new house. Since we took a long trip and celebrated a holiday in the midst of that, I'm still feeling a bit unsettled.

But last week, we went to gather the last few things out of the little home we'd known for the last three years. A home that we had outgrown quite a while ago, but home, nevertheless.

So I took pictures inside our empty house. And we said goodbye.

Goodbye to the very place where James was born that snowy March morning. I know I am not the first, nor the last, woman to leave behind the spot where her babe first took breath. But oh, my. This is the hardest part for me about saying goodbye to the house. Goodbye convenient 3/4 bathroom off the big bedroom.

Goodbye odd, inset, north-facing bedroom window, and goodbye walls and ceiling painted moss green. I will not miss this dark bedroom.

Goodbye fireplace, before whose hearth we spent so many happy, cozy, beautiful family moments. I will miss you deeply. (New house does not have a fireplace. A concession I am still kind of surprised we made.)

Goodbye ugly linoleum in the laundry room which I actually kind of love now.

Goodbye hideous ceiling fan. Before James was born, his daddy and I used to joke often that when our baby was born into this room, we'd need to shield his (or her) eyes so that this fan wasn't the first thing he saw. Because then he would want to go back inside of mama!

Goodbye acres-long view outside our front door of the private golf course that our condo abutted. Goodbye not being able to let the children play outside without my being with them.

Goodbye to the tiny spot between the front door and the air conditioning where we just squeezed a sandbox. (Goodbye air conditioning!) Goodbye rude golfers who would sometimes come and peep into our windows. We certainly won't miss them and their noisy golf carts speeding by!

Goodbye narrow hallway that looks so long now that you aren't cluttered with laundry and toys.

Goodbye hill that Elisabeth learned to turn four somersaults in a row down, and where many of our family sledding parties happened.

Goodbye kitchen with more green paint and cabinets with that glaze that my husband thought made you look dirty instead of stylish. Goodbye kitchen where birthday cakes were baked, and James's first foods were served up, and where we prepared Christmas day brunch, and Thanksgiving the year that Grandma's foot was broken and James was still in mama's belly, and three years' worth of pumpkin-carving pasta dinners with Rebecca, three years' worth of Halloween chili, first dairy-free baking efforts, and where countless breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and family dinners were prepared. Sometimes with love and thought, and sometimes in a big hurry. But here.

So, goodbye little house. Little condo, I mean. There was nothing remarkable about you in your 1980-ish-ness. But I will miss you. And I won't. Because I know it's time. Time to say hello to something new.