In this house, green paint stains the kitchen table. It’s a small spot that I never scrubbed too hard because it’s a remnant of the night last Christmas that I celebrated the season with Caleb and my two best friends. We painted ornaments and canvases while listening to music and enjoying pizza. It was the night I found out my best friend was pregnant. It was a perfect night, and one I’d never want to forget. So the green paint stays, on the table I inherited after my grandfather died. Memories on memories.
In this house, the walls leading up the stairs are scuffed up and scratched. Reminders of the many things we’ve moved that Jerry banged and clanged into the walls. Caleb’s big boy bed and dressers, for when we transition him this summer. The couch we fought over bringing up, Jerry and me and our stubborn ways. A reminder of our first little home and all the ways we’ve changed it and changed IN it.
In this house, doorways are scraped of paint, sometimes down to the metal. Where baby gates have stood, and some still do. Where we kept Caleb safe from the flight of stairs down into the foyer. Where Ruffles sleeps in the kitchen and can’t get out, where we have to keep Caleb OUT of so he’ll stop filling cups of water to overflow the dog bowls with. Reminders of the baby who once crawled and wriggled, but runs now and doesn’t need so much protection these days.
In this house, books are stacked precariously in piles in nearly every room. Bookshelves overflow, including Caleb’s, but mostly mine. No rhyme or reason, except that favorites are on this shelf and the rest are a comforting chaos that only I can understand.
In this house, laundry sits atop the dining room table for days at a time sometimes. It drives me mad and gets my anxiety going, but in this house, we live in the quiet chaos of full time work while raising small children. We never stop moving, stop running, stop going. I hate it now, but I’ll miss it someday when life is quiet and slow, the things I crave so desperately right now.
In this house, the once beautiful wood floors are sometimes sticky and sometimes stained. Caleb’s crayons and markers and gummy snacks quietly coat the floors, and we don’t always see right away to scrape it off. Dogs eat mac and cheese off the floors, lovingly dropped by Caleb as he laughs while feeding his dogs “Puppy” and “Uffles.” I yell and swoop down with a wipe every time he makes another mess or spills another drink. In this house, our child is living life and sometimes it’s messy.
In this house, we’ve had screaming matches, emotional breakdowns, hard days and harder nights. But in this house, we’ve also laughed, and danced, and sang. We’ve made up, we’ve hugged, we’ve laughed with our boy. We’ve had beautiful moments, the best of them. We returned home from our honeymoon and moved straight into this house. My parents had decorated the bathroom, had put up the shower curtain my best friend gave me at our bridal shower. I painted the bedroom with my mom and Aunt Linda, from mint green to white. I imagined the room that would one day be a nursery, and shortly thereafter, it was. In this house, I peed in cups and on sticks and got positives, the highest moments of my life, and all the negatives and tears too. Jerry, my dad, my brother, put up our barn door wall, have moved countless pieces of furniture, have helped make this house our home. We brought our baby home in this house. We’ve had many sleepless nights in this house. I learned to be a wife, to be a mom, to forgive and to love in this house.
In this house, you won’t see a single thing that’s perfect. In this house, the kitchen is ugly, the rooms are too small, and at least one room is always a disaster. Closets overflow in this house, this house that’s becoming increasingly too small. Imperfections are everywhere you look in this house. But it’s okay, because I built a family in this house. I loved my family in this house. Our memories live in this house. And one day when we move, when I get the dream house I’ve always wanted, I know that in some ways, I will always miss this house. A part of me, a part of my family, a part of our story, of our history, will forever be in this house.
