i'm counting on my mind to remember

Our house hit the market today. After I told our Realtor to go for it, I went into the bathroom and threw up. I sat there alone and cried, reliving every minute of our lives in this house, in our home.

I flashed back to the night Ski proposed to me in our living room. I can still see the very shy, nervous and excited look on his face. I can still feel the wetness of our combined tears on my cheek as we hugged and promised forever.

When I close my eyes I can picture myself sitting in the bathroom during the exact moment the pregnancy test announced Renee's up and coming arrival, only to follow-up that exact same moment seventeen months later notifying us of Cameron.

When I open my watering eyes, I struggle to focus on the the alarm clock reading 3:13AM and I can feel my feet on the cold hardwood floors as I stumble in to the baby's room for that middle of the night feeding.

This house, it smells like us. It smells like home.

I can see both of my children, my babies, in the Exersaucer screeching and talking to me while I cook dinner in my tiny little kitchen.

I can see her first steps, his first bath, their first kiss. I can hear his tiny little newborn moaning and grunting and I can remember the exact instant she called me MOM for the first time.

I can feel my heart skip a beat watching my husband carrying our babies around in the Daddy Chair to look at the dragonfly light in the dining room.

I can feel her snuggled in close to me on her big felted wool rug, our heads propped up on the big floor pillows I sewed for her in the dining room, reading books and talking about our day during those rare one-on-one mother and daughter moments.

I can hear the persistent creek of the fourth stair from the bottom and the way Cameron's door clicks every time the cat wanders in to check on him.

I can remember each walk up and down our street, friendly hellos from our neighbors and I can remember where the crevices are in the driveway that hit the shovel, making it hard to get rid of the massive amounts of snow.

I can see where each of the perennials are, the plants that my sister planted from seed and brought for me to put in my garden and I will never forget how much I love how the back garden looks through the kitchen window in the springtime when the Hostas are just beginning their spreading.

My biggest fear is that us leaving will erase these memories and they will no longer be so vivid in my mind, that time passing will take them away from me. I fear that I will always look back on this house as home because of the history we made here, and that I'll never be as happy as I have been during these last five years. I fear that I'll regret ever allowing someone else to call it home because it is our home and it is impossible for me to imagine my family anywhere else.

Comments

[Davina]

Girl, you have captured so much on camera, you'll never forget or lose those memories. Get your camera out and take photos of each of those things, this is a new chapter and a new home to make new memories, and when you see your children running in your huge yard that you don't have to share you'll remember why you did it.