Remembering Home

Selling your house is a big decision especially when your house is a home to you. Not just a place you reside but a place that in every corner is a memory etched. A place that your literal blood, sweat and tears were poured. Selling my house is harder than I thought it would be.
I decided only days before the listing went live to do one more good cleaning. With a deep breathe I swept the bristles of the broom across the hardwood floors and with one swift brush up in a billowing cloud came a coat of confusion. The confusion of how to fix a house, how to afford a mortgage and car payments and heat and hot water when money is scarce. Confusion on how to keep a marriage strong when you are up all night with a screaming newborn. The confusion on how to transition from husband and wife to a mother and a father. As the confusion entered my dust pan it simply disappeared and I moved on.
As I pulled the big heavy black vacuumed from the hallway closet and the sound bellowed from the small appliance and made smooth lines in the carpet I watched sadness slip into the canister. Every corner of my house seemed to collect a big ball of dusty sadness. The tears of sadness and realization that my father would never meet son, the arguments my husband and I endured over silly things like my inability to make decisions and his inability to be patient and more serious things financial hardship and family matters. Sadness in the shape of absence of loved ones and losing people to death and to relationships outgrown. As the sadness slipped away and I turned the vacume off I was left with silence. It reminded me how silence can sometimes have its own conversations....
As I took the feather duster to the tops of shelving and light fixtures and dust spread in the air like small particles of snow I breathed in a good helping of joy. I remembered turning the key to our first home and being so filled with dreams. I recalled the happiness a positive pregnancy test made us and the small moments of joy I would feel wrapped up in my husband right before I drifted to sleep. I recalled nights that the dog, my husband and I would snuggle like an inseparable pact entwined in one another. I remembered the moment I brought my son into our home and I knew we were finally a family I had always dreamed of. I recalled dancing in the dining room with my husband and laying on the hammock in my yard as the sunshine smiled down on me, I remembered so much joy that it entered my heart and almost made it feel like it might be to much and I might just explode.
Lastly with the sun shining in, I washed the windows. With ever squirt of the glass cleaner and wipe with a towel I saw a clear picture of the outdoors and looked out to see hope. Hope that my newborn baby would be healthy, hope that my marriage would stay as strong as it was the day my husband told me he would be mine forever, the hope of health and good will.
Yes my house has been my home and as I get ready to leave it I clean up the memories and prepare to take them with me.