Valentine's Day has not, historically speaking, been my most favorite holiday. for a couple of years really bad things would happen, and i blamed fate, cosmic intervention, whatever would explain those bad things away. this Valentine's Day brought me a gift in the form of lessons in maturity and self-realization i didn't know i had yet to learn. it sounds all psych-wonky and overly dramatic, and it probably is. no, it definitely is. but so be it. my mother and stepfather have been trying to sell their house for a few years now. early last month, some random stroke of luck appeared out of nowhere (well, to be fair, it appeared from next door, where a woman was accompanying her friend who was looking at the neighbors' house which was also for sale), and a wealthy couple from town put an offer in on the house. and on Valentine's Day, the four of them met in a lawyer's office downtown and closed on the sale. to be sure, papers were signed by candlelight at the best table in town.

all in all, i blame Valentine's Day for this whole mess. Valentine's Day put my schizophrenic dog Booger to sleep in 2000 and buried him in the backyard of the house my mom sold 6 years later, to the day.

on one hand, i am so extremely happy that they finally sold that damn house. it's been on and off the market for something ridiculous like 4 years, so getting nearly what they were asking for it is really outstanding, and a financial blessing for them, the retirees who were outspending themselves and getting post-retirement jobs (well, john was) to make up for the difference that will eventually catch up to them. they'll be able to enjoy the next few years the way they always wanted to--traveling all over the place. and then, once they decide they want to settle down again, they're going to build another house. a smaller house. a house that old folks won't have trouble living inside. where will this house be, they have no idea.

so that's on one of my hands. on the other, well...i am so extremely bothered by the fact that they sold this damned house, and more bothered by my utterly selfish, child-like reaction. i didn't think i would have any reaction at all, so it really caught me off guard, this screaming voice inside of me saying, 'nooooes! don't sell my house!"

i am sad. so, so sad. i mean, it's just a house...i get that. and i didn't even spend most of my growing-up time in that house. to be fair, the 'i lost my childhood home' award should be split between the two houses in which i spent the most time growing up--the house in town, literally a one and a half minute walk from the local high school, and the house down the street, literally a one and a half minute walk from the house they just sold. maybe it's the fact that, while i lived in the other two houses far longer than i lived in this one, i think i did the most growing up in that house. it was finished shortly after i started my senior year of high school, and the first weekend it was live-able, i stayed there alone (something that i would come to love doing over the course of the next 8 or 10 years). my mom and john had driven out to arizona for my great-grandmother's 95th birthday surprise, and i had been at a student council convention when they left and still needed to finish out the week of school, so i was flying out with my aunt and uncle to meet them on saturday. it was the scariest thing imaginable...me, 17, alone in a huge, unfamiliar house that smelled like a new car, protected only by a schizophrenic dog and an alarm system that i had no idea how to program. i think i might have slept for about 2 hours that night, but it was my new house and i wanted to spend as much time in it as possible before i left for college less than a year later.

funny how that worked out...i think i spent more time there in my first year of college, when i lived out of state, than i stayed there any other time. my stepdad still likes to joke (because he tells the same stories and jokes over and over again) that they saw me more during that one year i was in texas than all of the time i was going to TU, not 30 minutes away. worst of times, best of times...see? that house has always been there. for all of its quirks and broken clocks and blinking, not properly wired lights, i loved that house. so many good times were had there, and so many times i went there looking for and finding comfort when things weren't so good at all.

i guess i just feel like i've lost something...my home...which is not home, really, because i have one of those of my own with ben. here. far, far away in a different time zone. or at least that's the theory. so, i guess it's more like a 'home base' that i'm losing...like i'm losing the one connection i have to the place i grew up, at least the one connection that i find comforting and familiar and warm. that house was always like a bear-hug to me, so welcoming and inviting. the one thing that stayed the same.

and now i'll never set foot inside of it again, or on the off chance that i do, i won't be the least bit comfortable inside of it. i'll never accidentally fall sleep on the only couch i've ever been able to fall asleep on, so worn from the different bodies that occupied it day in and day out that certain cushions became formed to certain positions of certain bodies. i'll never wake up to a gorgeous view of the lake from the upstairs bedroom window and think, "wow...i guess that's why people choose to live here." i'll never go night swimming in the pool where i spent so many lazy days and nights with my friends in high school and in college. i'll never cook with my mom in her dream kitchen. we'll never stay up most of the night before Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner, sipping mimosas, laughing, talking, burning things, or spilling things all over the countertops. i'll never have to explain the "strobe lights" in the kitchen, or the unnerving sound of the air fresheners that sounded like someone whispering. i'll never see chester jump over that fence with the greatest of ease and take off running like he's the fastest, smartest, and happiest dog in the world. i'll never get to visit my mom, or my family, and be so comfortable that i never want to leave them. i'll never want to bring a serious boyfriend and his parents home for the holidays to stay in this house that i have always felt so at peace in. and now, even if i wanted to bring them along, now there is no place for all six of us to stay together (which, in hindsight, might actually be a blessing in disguise...).

in short, understatedly so, visiting The Motherland will never be the same.

this is almost like a break-up...how pre-break up, one always focuses on the bad things about the other person and the relationship, and post-break up, one is constantly reminded of all of the good things, all of the reasons why staying together seemed worth it. so, this is one of those things, like a bad break-up, that i have to just get over. as my sister-in-law would say, i "just need to put on my big-girl panties and deal with it." i do, and i will. i just didn't think it would be so hard letting go of a house that isn't even mine. i guess the whole point is that, even though it's not my house and never will be again, it will always be my home. and leaving home is hard, even when you know you can always go back. it's even harder to leave when you know you can't. i keep saying and thinking that i wish i had known when i was home at Christmas that it would be the last time i set foot in that house, but the truth is...i think that would have been harder.

it's just a house, maggie. geez. Get. Over. It.
i know, i know. i'm just going to miss it.
you have a house of your own...remember?
yeah...i do. two of them, in fact. and one is even home-ish...
home-ish?
yeah. it's where i live, for the time being, but it's not quite 'home' enough...
maybe if you'd stay in one place for more than a year or two, it might seem like more of a home.
and there is the rub...finding a house that i, no...that we like well enough to turn into a place to call home, more or less permanently.