7:00am. The household was sleeping while my dad and I had a quick cup of coffee together before we took off for work. I could feel my heart pounding because this was the moment I had to tell him what I had done… I had asked for a transfer at work, and my twenty year old ass was moving out.

This is what is supposed to happen. I was twenty. Aren’t children supposed to leave the nest the day of their eighteenth birthday? Confetti should have been flying. But instead, I told my dad how scared I was. I had no idea how to live in a bigger world than what I was used to but I knew if I didn’t try I would regret it forever. I told him I didn’t know if I was going to be back in three months because I couldn’t do it, or if I was leaving for good. We would soon find out this was ultimately the beginning of my adulthood.

By now, we are running late for work. I put my big girl heels on and as I made my way out the door I was wrapped in a tight hug. He may not admit it, but my dad cried that day.

———

I never moved around as a child. I didn’t have to be the new kid. I didn’t have to make new friends. My parents bought the house I would grow up in when I was a year old. The year I turned twenty, they had built their dream home that I would live in for a month before taking off. Packing up our house of 19 years was no easy task. The shit that accumulates over that amount of time is not okay and I was ready to burn it all. I threw out a can of beans that expired in 1990. But the day we left that place, Miranda Lambert had me bawling like a baby to The House that Built Me.

I kept trying to tell myself I shouldn’t be so upset. I was an adult who would have eventually moved out on my own anyway. But selling my childhood home felt like I was giving away a piece of my childhood. We knew the owners that bought it planned to renovate and it felt eery to think I could never step foot in my bedroom again because it simply would not exist.

When I finally moved away, I was in love you guys. And love makes you do crazy things. Like move in together after two weeks. And shop for engagement rings after six months. I was so happy, the vision of me backing out of my parents driveway the day I left yelling through a waterfall of tears “How am I supposed to buy groceries AND pay rent?!” seemed like an incredibly distant memory.

My boyfriend at the time (who is now my husband) had a condo. I immediately moved all twelve of my belongings into this 1000 sq ft space where we could see each other from every corner of it. Just the way we liked it.

I lived with him there for one year when our drunk in love asses bought a God damn house.

It happened by accident. We called up a realtor because we had come across a house for sale that we really wanted to see. We weren’t seriously looking. We were snooping. We were THOSE people. Once we got a good snoop in, the realtor suggested we take a look at another house he knew of for sale… and we fucking loved it. Before we knew it we had put an offer in and it was accepted. Oopsy daisy.

This is the house I will forever hold dear to my heart.

I lived some of the best parts of my life in this house. This is where I lived when I married my husband. This is where I brought my first two babies home (also where I made them!). These were the walls that shaped my family, when my husband and I were building this life for ourselves. What we wanted it to look like and who we wanted to be. The things we wanted to create. They all happened HERE. Our first year together in the condo was the two of us having fun. Our time in this little red house was the start of our REAL life.

It was our home for four years. Saying goodbye was difficult, but our life was taking us somewhere else.

We would eventually move into our new home in a different town. This house was shiny and new and took your breath away when you walked in the front door. I missed our old house but it didn’t take long to make this one feel like home. 

I thrived here. My business would do well, I made a ton of friends, we got along with our neighbours, and to add that extra special touch to a house, I would end up bringing a baby home here too. I don’t know if it’s just me but the place I welcomed my babies home to seems so sentimental. I brought them into this world and this is where they get to start their lives.

It has been three years here, but as life would have it, this isn’t going to be our home anymore. 

I am a different person than who I was that day I hugged my dad and told him I was leaving. These houses I’ve lived in are not what made me who I am today but they are significant moments in time where I can look back at my life. The important things that helped me become the person I am and the memories I hold dear to my heart. When I think of these things, I can picture the room of the house I was in. The company we’d keep. The day I brought my babies home.

I think that is why it is so hard to say goodbye. Home is where the heart is, and my heart is in all of them. It’s another chapter of my life closed.

But this time, it won’t get me down like it has in the past. After we lock the doors on an old chapter a more exciting chapter begins. How can I complain about that?

My life has only been getting better.