Winds of Change

I'm moving this weekend. We finally decided to let this old house go. We can't afford the improvements needed, especially in this economy and housing market. We would lose money hand over fist...money that we don't have. Money that we need for one child, this child, who's going away to college in five short months. Breathe, Melinda, breathe.

And I'm okay with the house thing. Great, actually. We need a change. A fresh wind. A bright patch in a rocky year. There are things I will miss. The red front door. The staircase. The bamboo in the backyard that we fight every year from overtaking the entire yard. The next door neighbors.

This corner.

The cobalt blue kitchen, the black and white bathroom, the possum under my back deck.

The memories. But those, I get to take with me.

What I won't miss is the bass thumping from the stereo across the street. The random gun shots we hear on any given day. The fact that we have to leave our house on New Year's Eve, The Fourth of July, Memorial Day, and Labor Day because it sounds like a war zone with all the fireworks, mixed in with the gunshots. The cats. Oh...my...God...the wild cats. And I won't miss the rats. That's right, I said rats. You'd think with all the cats, but no, we still battle the rats.

I won't miss the broken things. Everything is broken (did somebody say Bob Dylan?)

I plan to take lots of pictures, so I can remember. Because oddly enough, I've lived here longer than any other place and I'm going to miss this house. Seven years. I bought it when I was single, alone with three children, and so lost. It meant a lot to me. Still does. So much has happened here. My son was lost and found. I met and married my sweet husband. My daughters have turned into beautiful, young women. And we found another daughter.

But life is about change. And I'm embracing this change wholeheartedly. I have five more months before Stevey leaves for college and I feel like I have so much to tell her. So many things that I think I've missed. I feel like I need to tuck in corners, cross secrets off the list, give her a manual. I'm not ready for this, but I don't think any mother is ever ready.

I have a lot to say about her over the next several months. She's pretty amazing.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

Balance, grasshopper, balance.