The ice machine in our refrigerator has just started making ice after about two weeks with none – as if it took a summer vacation without letting us know. Every time something like this happens – which it seems to do more and more now – we re-visit the same dreaded, tired question: Should we move?
The girls all have their own apartments and have for a while now. So that gives us 3 bedrooms and 1 full bath (with 3 sinks!) that we really don’t need/use. The kitchen is a Tuscan kitchen, very popular about 20 years ago when we had it done. In fact, 20 years ago, before we moved into the house, we took every room down to the studs and re-built, re-modeled and re-decorated everything. It was fabulous, and we were all very, very happy. 20 years ago.
But now things are old, worn, operating sporadically or slowly. It’s shocking actually. Time went by so fast we didn’t realize that everything was aging – the appliances, the flooring, our kids, us. It’s like one day you turn around…and the ice machine doesn’t work anymore. We just never saw it coming. Yet here we are.
Yes, all of that sounds like a great argument for moving. But here’s the thing: Whenever I picture myself walking out the door for the very last time, I can’t see it. I stop myself because I can’t imagine it. This has been our home for 20 years. Our home. How do you open the front door, step outside and never go back?
I know people do. I know friends who moved right after their kids graduated high school and left for college. Some waited until everyone finished college, and then sold their house and moved on. Many of our friends, close friends, no longer live in the home they raised their kids in. Even my brother and sister-in-law recently packed up their home of 45 years as they downsize. (45!) I watch from the sidelines – aka, my house – and listen to all their stories.
Every one of them talked about how freeing the move was. They said packing was sad because you have to get rid of a lot of things, and that last day leaving was tough. But, they say, the first day somewhere new was wonderful. For all of them, the days that followed were exciting.
I remember when my mom and dad moved out of their home of 26 years to downsize. My mom was spending days in the basement going through box after box after box. One evening she said to me, “I threw out a lot of memories today.” I told her, of course, she hadn’t. She would always have the memories. But I was in my early 30s when that happened. Really, what did I know?
Today, I understand what she was feeling, because the home you live in for decades is overflowing with signs of a life well lived. But another way of saying that is “overflowing with signs of the past,” and that doesn’t seem like a good thing to surround yourself with.
For right now, though, we are staying in the home we love. And I think the only reason we are staying is because we simply aren’t ready to leave. And hey, the ice bin is totally full right now.
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