Heart

I suppose I ought to put down somewhere just how much my heart is aching over our move. We've been here for four and a half years, that is longer than I have ever lived in one place, ever in my life. I've hosted brownie troop meetings, buried a couple of hamsters, survived a rough pregnancy, hosted friends and family, watched my Sydney get taller and taller as she comes through the door. I've nursed her broken arms, her broken leg, her hurt feelings, I've fallen further and further in love with Al, and best of all of that, we brought Brooklyn home last summer to this little house. It's not much, just four walls, four old walls at that. Birds live in the roof and spring after spring they lay their eggs hatch their birds and then the little things can't make it out from under the eaves and end up falling to their deaths in the back yard. The back yard is full of weeds, because nothing else that I've planted there would grow. The garage is small, the bathroom is poorly ventilated, the kitchen makes one claustrophobic. I've made a life long friend since I lived in this house, met her because she used to live next door, I've even learned to appreciate the numerous dogs that now live there and learned that even though I don't share their love of dogs I can appreciate that they are a part of her family. I've watched the tree next door get bigger and bigger and provide shade to my bedroom, I've watched the children across the street grow just as I've watched my own. My heart is breaking that we are moving, and yet I tell my Sydney that it's just a house, we can be home anywhere. I know that's true, I know that no matter where the four of us live, we will be a family, it isn't this house that made us that way. Next Wednesday we will load Jon's truck up as many times as it takes and move our life to a little apartment. Sydney and Brooklyn, for the first time in their lives, have to share a room. Well that's ok, because really, the room is bigger than the ones they have on their own combined, most nights Brookie is in my bed anyway, and occasionally, so Syd is too. Maybe I should take that big bedroom and just put their beds in there? Nah! Al and I will take the smaller bedroom, we'll be a little crowded, but gee, it's rare that we're actually in the room at the same time anyway with his working graveyard and me on a traditional Monday - Friday 8 - 5. We will no longer be in a little neighborhood with no sidewalks and fast cars and places that it is scary to walk, we'll be in central Sparks, near the Boys and Girls club, the flea market, the drive in theater, and some grocery stores, thrift stores and a park. The places to walk will be flat, there is an exercise room, and with any luck, the pool will be repaired when we move in. There is a daycare if we decide that Brooklyn needs more than the home daycare where she is.

I've lost loved ones before, experienced grief and pain like I could never have imagined, and I keep telling myself that from pain there is growth, that from every loss I have gained somehow, I know that this will be no different, and this really is just a house, but I'm hurting right now, and I guess I had to admit that to myself so that I could get on with it.