So we literally just got back from our final cleaning efforts over at our old house, and maybe it’s just the lack of sleep because we’ve been cleaning for over 12 hours straight, but I’ve got to admit that I got a little emotional when I flipped off the lights and locked the front door for the last time…
A lot of years went by in that house.
We lived there for almost 3.5 years – almost the entirety of my time together with Sara, and more time than either of the other places in Tampa that I’ve lived since I first moved to Florida back in 2003.
It was the first house since moving here where I was actually able to put up lights outside for Christmas.
It was the house where we endured two grueling years of nursing school.
It was the house where I published my first book.
It was the house that we packed with entirely too many people during the week prior when we were going through the last-minute preparations for our wedding!
It was the house where, over many, many … many nights, I finally came to terms with the idea of being ready to have a baby.
In that regard, it’s kind of sad to think that that chapter of my life is over – no more late night walks from one end of the subdivision to the other, some chatting with Sara and some by myself just to help clear my head. The quaint, little 3-bedroom house that we had felt so unbelievably lucky to find within our price range back in 2007 is now just as vacant as the day that we moved in … albeit arguably a little cleaner than we had found it!
It’s time for us to move on now, and leave that house for another family to enjoy … hopefully one that has kids so they don’t get as frustrated as I did about the neighbor kids playing in their yard! Ultimately we’ve still got a lot to look forward to upon moving into our new house – puppy training and pool parties and eventually maybe even birthday parties for a new generation of our family, too. Still, it’s hard not to get a little sentimental as we close one door to make way for another…
There’s a part of me that’s going to miss that house, just like the condo before that, and even my very first apartment before that. I hope the next people who live there make as many new memories during their stay as we did, and also that they don’t mind the little, orange stains that we couldn’t get out of the carpet in the bedroom.