Today is our one-year anniversary of moving to North Carolina from Texas. I can’t believe it’s been a year and I can’t believe how little I’ve done here. So many rooms to paint, so little time….. When we moved, I was in the middle of writing Cole Dempsey’s Back in Town . I mean, smack in the middle. I took six weeks off the book for the move. I did this huge throw-away binge at the old house before we moved (and my husband marvels at how we moved into a house nearly twice as large and yet I have already managed to clutter it up!). We spent weeks fixing up the old house, repainting, repairing, replacing, before we put it on the market. The sad thing is that when we visited later, the new people re-did almost everything we’d done. ::sob:: They painted the house white (WHITE!) inside and out and even tore out my rose bushes. (WHAT is wrong with them??)
My oldest son was five weeks old when we moved into that house. The hardest thing about moving was leaving all those sentimental memories of my babies in that house. The hallway they ran down on their chubby legs. The kitchen cabinet doors they pulled on until they fell off and had to be repaired. The swings they swung on and the slide they slid down. The trees they climbed and the dock out back where they conquered their fears to learn to dive in the lake. All the birthdays and Christmases and Thanksgivings. All the wails and the laughter. It’s all there in that house.
We’ve lived here a year now–in a house in many ways like the one we left, another house in a small town, on a lake, with two acres of yard, and yet different in a hundred ways—and we’ve made new memories and it feels like home…in a way. But there still isn’t enough history here. I miss the steeped memories of the old house. Can a house ever feel like home when it’s not the home you brought your babies to when they were a day old and fresh from the hospital? Even our first child, who was five weeks old when we moved in, was “born” there in a way. We were already getting ready to build the house when I knew I was pregnant. We stood on the ground where the house would be built when I first told my husband I was pregnant. It was the first house we ever owned, and we didn’t have much money when we built it so it was as much blood, sweat and tears that went into it as dollars. It was our house in a way I can’t imagine any other house being, even the “dream” house we moved into. You can see our old house in Texas in February 2004, not long before we moved, by clicking here , and our new house in North Carolina in April 2004, not long after we moved in, by clicking here .
North Carolina is beautiful and our new home is wonderful. With five of us, the old house was closing in on us, it was so small. But I miss living where my babies were babies . When I was a kid, we moved all the time. I never lived anywhere in my life more than five or six years, and mostly I lived places for no more than a year or two. Maybe that’s why living in our old house for thirteen years is still so hard to forget. I think, more than anywhere I’ve ever lived, that house will always be home in my mind.
Where is home to you?
Jennifer says:
I move too often. I haven’t found home yet. 😐 Hope your kids are adjusting and not overloading you with motherly guilt as mine try to do.:smile:
On March 30, 2005 at 1:29 pm
Cynthia says:
Home has been a series of rental properties for us for quite a few years. *sigh* The good news is we’ll finally be moving into our own house sometime in May. Yippee, I can’t wait!
When I think of home of think of the house I grew up in. My parents just sold it and moved this past year…and when I visited them, I felt exactly like you. It’s nice, but not the home where memories were made.
On March 30, 2005 at 2:25 pm
Robyn says:
Oh I totally understand and agree about ‘home’ being where memories were made. You can make a house a home but the first home where you created many memories will always be home.
On March 30, 2005 at 2:36 pm
BJ Deese says:
My home is in GA. This is the first place dh and I lived together. It will be seven years in November. And there are SO many memories here. Recently we have been talking about moving because of dh’s job, but it is hard to give it all up. Especially since he just built bookshelves for me…hahaha
On March 30, 2005 at 3:37 pm
Jordan says:
Mine is a 100 year old farm house that has since burned down. It’s sad. We only have a few pictures of the house itself, but I think it’ll always be home, even if it’s only in my mind. 😥
On March 30, 2005 at 4:48 pm
Olga says:
What a nostalgic picture! And a wonderful, wonderful topic. After I’d moved, for several years I was waking up sometimes and couldn’t believe I did it. Home is Texas for me now (and yes, snow here is a rarity). Just Texas. Period.
On March 30, 2005 at 5:56 pm
Danica says:
Home… well, I’m a homebody, and I love my books. Have to be surrounded by them. Right now, home is this house that I HATE, but since we all know I’m getting a new house for my birthday, that is going to be home to me for a number of years, until I can afford to build my dream home on a ranch in the mountains. And then, I am never moving again. NEVER. In fact, I fully intend to be buried there, that’s how much I hate moving.
Alright, I just started posting a long description of my dream home, and realized how long it was, so I think you’ve inspired my blog topic for the day. 🙂
On March 30, 2005 at 6:38 pm
Mary says:
Home to me is where I live now. We moved about the same time. I love where I live. I swear I’m living my dream. My daughter is close by, we have a beautiful home, and we have great friend. Yipppee.:grin:
On March 30, 2005 at 7:10 pm
Deana says:
Baytown, TX is home now. I never want to leave. My “growing up” home was Beaumont, TX, even though we didn’t move there til I was 12. We moved a lot, too. Why couldn’t CoC ministers stay in one place back then?!
On March 30, 2005 at 10:38 pm
Jill says:
Home for me is where we live now, near Lake Tahoe, though we’ve only been here 8 years. It’s where my kids have grown up, and that makes some beautiful memories for me …
On March 30, 2005 at 10:59 pm
Alison says:
Hey, Deana. My father is still a CoC minister. The longest we stayed anywhere when I was a kid was where I went to school from 5th – 10th grade.
My kids have moved just as often. We’ve never been attached to a place, and I like it like that! Makes picking up and making new adventures easy and FUN!
On March 30, 2005 at 11:19 pm
Jennifer says:
My family moved a lot, and I married a polo pro. The longest place I’ve ever stayed is here in France. We’ve been in this house for four years now, and it’s starting to feel like home. But it’s a rental, so I have to fight against getting too attached to it and fixing it all up.
I guess I’ve yet to have a house I think of as home. My kids are used to moving around too – we must have gypsy blood from somewhere, lol.
On March 31, 2005 at 5:59 am
Vicki says:
Jennifer, we moved a lot when I was a kid and I’ve told people that we were gypsies. 😀
I’m not sure where home is to me. Sad.
On March 31, 2005 at 9:20 am