Adventures in Landlording – The Things We Leave Behind

It’s getting real.  The boxes are getting packed.  There are empty nails sticking out the wall, slightly darker paint showing where picture frames once hung.  The home turning back into what it was when I first walked into it eleven years ago, just a house.

So much has happened in the past eleven years.  I go back and forth between thinking that it all seemed like a lifetime ago, but also, just last week.

This is the place where my husband and I fell in love.  Where we lived together for the first time.  In the living room where he asked me to marry him.  In the kitchen where I came running out to him as he was making dinner with that first positive pregnancy test in my hands.  In our daughter’s room where we brought her after we came home from the hospital (but where we were never able to convince her to sleep).

Where we took pictures every month for a year, documenting all the changes she went through in those first twelve months.

There is a dent in the ceiling from where one of our friends shot a cork upon opening a bottle of champagne after he proposed to his girlfriend.

Where we began the tradition of the annual St. Patrick’s Day Party that changed and grew from a drunken bacchanalia to a mostly family friendly event.

There is a patch of counter top that mysteriously broke off after a particularly wild party at our house (pre-daughter, natch).

The fire pit that is no longer, that we gathered around in support of one another when a friend suddenly passed away.

Where I brought home cat after cat after cat.

All of these things that made our house our home will cease to exist in a few more weeks.  Of course, when I confided this in my husband he very reassuringly, reasonably, and annoyingly told me that those things don’t just disappear once we do.  They will always have happened here and no matter what we are doing with this house, whether it be continuing to keep it as a rental or returning here at some point.  Nothing changes that.

I must add that my husband is a good man for putting up with me, my flair for the dramatic, and my public outing of his antics at almost every turn.  Also, for agreeing to pack up everything we own to embark on this mini adventure, obviously.

Also, I need to remember that all of those things don’t just stay here.  They come with me, with us.  Just like the unreasonable amount of cat paraphernalia, countless comic books, and stuffed animals.  It all comes with us, and it will all come with us wherever we end up after that, and after that, and for the love of god no more after thats.

So yeah, I will take all those memories with us and although they may no longer live within the walls of this house (where hopefully someone new will be making wonderful memories) they will just have to live within us and the stories we will tell our daughter (and hopefully, like five more kids) until she grows bored of them.

Godspeed house, I hope you get to see as many great things happen to our tenants as you saw happen for us.

Also, try not to burn down or have any pipes burst or get termites or anything.  You’re our retirement plan now.

Approximately 21 days left under this roof.