You are never prepared for the complex emotions and sadness you feel when selling your family home. Just when I think that I have reached the stage of acceptance, something happens and triggers a feeling of loss. Recently it was my son home from university who packed up his old room. He stored up his memories, cleaned out his closet, and realized that he may not be able to visit again before the house sold. The emotions swirled around us as he ran around taking videos of the inside of the house and peaked when he ran outside to visit his memories. The place where he caught frogs, where he took out a wasp nest for mom, and where he chased skinks. As he hugged me goodbye, tears formed in his eyes, causing a chain reaction until we were all a blubbering mess.
After he and my husband left for the long car ride back to his university, I sat down and cried. I could not shake the melancholy. It followed me around all day, tapping me on the shoulder as it questioned my life choices. My head responded with logic but my heart…well my heart just hurt. Was it the right decision to sell our family home? Should we hold onto it so we don’t have to address the complex emotions of letting go?
But I will write what I texted to my son. The memories that we’ve made here are forever ours. You will never be the five-year-old sitting on the boulder outside in the sunlight eating that ice cream cone. The zip line was taken down years ago and I’ve lost you to adulthood for some time now. Those memories are forever yours. Now we make new ones. You launch into your graduation, and your career and find love and life. I give myself permission to live the second half of my own. The truth is complex. Home is all of us. We take it with us in our hearts. It’s not the bricks or the foundations of this family home, it will always be us.
He understood my words but it doesn’t make it easier. The truth is that change is hard and although some change can be gradual, sometimes it feels like a tearing in your heart. As a parent, I can’t keep this home for him or any of my children. I can’t keep time frozen and nor can I protect him from the reality of life. All of our children need to understand that we keep writing new chapters until we must put down our pen.
The important thing is to keep living. That means growth, change and being uncomfortable.
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