Moving on

I woke up this morning in a new room. My new bedroom.  In my new house.  “My house.”  These words sound so strange. For the first time in 15 years I have downsized; my little family empire building days are over.  And man, I have so many boxes of things…things that built an empire that came to an end last year, things I sorted through by myself, things that are first world problems to have too many of.  So here I am, surrounded by too many things in boxes, in a house that is just mine, and it feels liberating and hopeful and sad all at the same time.  I feel liberated from a 5 bedroom house and a yard that simply wasn’t affordable on my own.  I feel hopeful that “my house” will eventually become an extension of me and I will make it a home.  I feel sad that I seem to get the short end of the stick sometimes, literally cleaning shit in my old house on Mothers Day while my children frolic in a brand new pool their dad bought them.  I need to dig myself out of those resentful thoughts and just get on with it.  Ah, so many metaphors about moving houses--One of the last heavy doors has closed behind me in this marriage. Tick “sell the family home and move out of it” off the divorce checklist.  That is pretty huge. Time to pick paint colours, envision a bathroom that is not puke green with purple counters, cook something in my new kitchen, enjoy my beautiful (and tiny) yard.  It is time to emotionally move on. 

I walked around the empty house deliberately yesterday before I closed the door forever.  I walked around the beautiful yard and said goodbye to the arbutus and cedar trees that made it truly a west coast paradise.  I blew a kiss at the house too—it seemed like I should salute it with a bit of love on my way out. I could say something snarky about how there wasn’t much love in that house but I’ll just skip over that part.   I wasn’t trying to be melodramatic; just needing to acknowledge there were a lot of emotions running deep yesterday and rather than bury them, it should be dealt with in the moment. 

As much as that house became a bit of a trap in the last year, it was the perfect place for my door to always be open to friends, drink wine, have many a good conversation, and to let the kids run free with their friends.  It was where I learned how to renovate a home, gutting the basement and what sweat equity really means.  It’s where I got to know a lot of international students who financially enabled me and the boys to stay in the house, and offer a bit of stability for them when everything else was changing around them.  It’s where I went through a bit of a transformation and turned into a stronger more independent version of me.  It is with gratitude that I look back at that house too—it’s not all bitterness.

So, hello new neighbourhood, hello many opportunities to start again, hello new life.  I am going to make this place awesome if it’s the only thing I do this month J And, the door is open—come and visit!