There are few places held as dear as the place we call home. Years ago when I moved to a new community and home about 50 minutes away I mourned the loss of a home that brought so much joy and comfort. There were also bad times as well as some downright gut wrenching painful times there but I have chosen to remember the good ones in keeping with the “glass is half full” mantra.
[Photo Credit: The Pink Soapbox]
Leaving back then felt like my heart was being torn apart and like a death. It was the end of a chapter and it felt like having a warm cozy blanket ripped from around me that had provided warmth, security and comfort. ”That Old House” was in a great community with some neighbors that I will never be able to adequately thank for all they gave me during the tough days there and the good ones too. I think they ( or she) knows who she is.... She was a special person along with her family to me and my kids. They were like family back then as mine were many miles away and theirs across the Big Pond.
As the years have passed I periodically have driven back by it and always feel a lump in my throat as I would sit in the cul de sac just an extra minute thinking of how those bricks and that backyard shaped some of the most cherished memories raising my children. I can recall every nuance about the house in my mind as I mentally walk back through each room as I remember when I was living there. I think of bringing my son home from the hospital, an adored new chocolate labradoodle puppy , first days of preschool and kindergarten, Christmas parties, happy hour with friends, trips to the neighborhood park, the sandbox, the swing set with the dolphin, the tree house, a hammock in what I called “the Sherwood Forest” of the backyard, the screened in porch, the pumpkin carving on the back brick patio, the tea parties on the picnic table, sprinkler days, visits from aunts and cousins as well as remembering the very last night I slept in the house before we moved along with pulling away in my SUV filled to the brim with fragile pieces of my life that wouldn’t fit in to the moving van.
Sometimes when I am having a bad day I feel the urge to go by there and want to just put my hand on my old house to connect to the good times but of course I can’t. When I first tried to sell it several years ago the housing market was still reeling from the fallout of 2008. However, when I finally did accept an offer to sell I remember crying the entire way to the closing. There was a part of me that was never fully able to completely let it go and I wonder if the new owners found the love and comfort in it that I did.
It will always be a piece of me and few other places have ever really felt quite as cozy as that home on Gifford Drive. I know both of my kids still cherish the days spent there and the friends they made that shaped such an important part of their lives. I hope one day they can take their families back there and tell them how special it was to them. Through them, all the good memories will live on forever in their hearts just as they still do in mine.
XO & #StayCurious
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