Out with a Bang

I dreaded the fourth of July.  Daniel decided it would be fun for us to camp out in the old house, to see the fireworks one last time from the two-story deck he built himself.  In theory, I thought it was a great idea.  Romantic.  But as it got closer, I wasn’t so sure.  From a strictly logistical perspective, the place was filthy.  There was no furniture, no fridge, no shower curtains; it would be a nightmare.  But those were really just a ruse for the real reason I didn’t want to do it: I wasn’t sure I could handle going back.  The day of the move was so task-oriented and busy that I didn’t have time to look around at how sad my first home looked.  But I knew if we went back for “family time” in the old house, it might be too much.

So Monday as we continued to work to set up the new house, we waffled over what to do.  I had convinced Daniel that a sleepover wasn’t wise, that wasn’t a hard sell.  But I could tell his heart was still set on going.  I wondered if I would regret it if we didn’t.  So we ventured over, with a vacuum cleaner, Pack and Play, toddler sleeping bag, Styrofoam cooler, and our ever present iPod and docking station.  We ate takeout on the patio.  At every turn I welled up.  Images of our life together washed over me.  I rinsed a sippy cup in the kitchen sink and remembered bathing both my newborns in it.  (And also, man is it a beautiful and deep sink.)  I looked down the galley kitchen I had long despised and longed for that kind of counter space. I saw the cabinetry, tile work, woodwork, paint, plumbing, and design Daniel had poured his heart and talented hands into over five years.  It was becoming sadistic.

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When it started raining, the girls ran circles around my old bedroom while I sat on the floor. I thought of the first night Daniel and I had spent in that room, in sleeping bags on the floor.  I changed into my wedding dress in that room. Over our ensuing marriage we held each other there through joy and loss, through lost jobs and sick loved ones, a miscarriage and the fears it brought, through dark days and through the unspeakable exhaustion and joy of bringing our babies home.  I put Emerie to sleep in her room and couldn’t finish singing her the song I always sing.  It was time to go outside.We sat on the deck on the furniture I bought last Father’s Day.  We used to call it our favorite room of the house. 

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 Mirabella squealed in delight over staying up late and having a perfect view of the fireworks (and the hammock and her parents to herself).  She went to bed in our old room and we laid on the hammock while I cried.  We talked about how this was the longest we’d lived anywhere since we were kids, how it was the first place we’d been allowed to paint the walls, how I wasn’t sure we’d know how to be a family since that was the only place we’d ever been one.  “We’ll be a family wherever we go,” he said.  I used to know this.  Used to pride myself on not being attached to things like houses.  But then we made a home.

“I don’t think I want to come back,” I told him.  “My heart can’t take it.” 

Finally, Daniel said, “It’s time to go.”

Echoing the Alice in Wonderland theme of our Fourth of July in the new neighborhood, I said, “The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of other things.  Of ships and shoes and ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings.” 

“Wow, I can’t believe you just did that.  That was really weird,” he said.

When I woke her, Mirabella said, “We have to go to the new house, Mommy?  Because this is not our home anymore, right?  This is not our home.”  I winced and told her she was right.  In the car she said, “I love both our homes, Mommy.  I love two homes.”

I know that this one will always have a big piece of my heart, but the time has come to talk of other things.