Someone else's home

As the house quickly empties of its contents I can see why Bob liked this place so much and thought it would be a good home for us. The view is beautiful. It has the 5+ bedrooms the kids thought they needed. It has an inground pool. It is expansive and on a quiet street filled with unique and individual homes.

It has its quirks for sure and I have spent more time cursing the previous owners and their "handiwork"  than I care to admit.  We have spent several thousand dollars making sure that the new owners don't have to deal with these special idiosyncrasies that were maddening (and surprising) for us to have to deal with.

But despite all of the aggravations that this house gave me and despite the fact that I quickly realized that we are not big house people - I am grateful for this home. (In fact, my dad gifted me a little plaque that says, "Love grows best in little houses.", back when we lived in our Ohio house. I kept it in my kitchen while living in this big house and cannot wait to display it in the little apartment we are renting in Portland.) This home taught us a lot about the kind of people we are. It taught us a lot about how we feel about materialism. It reinforced our family values and how we would like to sustain them going forward.

As each room empties and its personality that was once ours becomes a blank canvas I cannot help but be excited for the next family to own this house. I cannot help but be excited for all of their possibilities. I think about the beautiful sunsets they will see from their very own backyard. I think about the rafts they can lay on and stare at the evening stars while floating in the pool. I wonder how they will decorate the house. I wonder if they will stay long here or if they, like us, are just passing through.

I hope that the new owners can love this house in way that I never quite could. I liked it, but I never fell in love with it. Maybe that is because I knew we weren't staying and didn't want to get attached to it. Maybe it was because I didn't like its size. I don't know, but for whatever reason I never loved it and this house deserves love.


It is a neat feeling to walk through what was once my home and to  see it through the eyes of a potential new owner. I already feel like it no longer belongs to me. It's neat to think of the reactions of the next owners and how when they walk through the door for the first time they will know that this is the house for them. That makes me feel happy.

This house is no longer my house. Perhaps in some ways it never really was. Perhaps it was always someone else's house and we were just borrowing it for an extended vacation.