#ProjectWeekend | June 16 - 17
There only a few things I truly hate. If I had to rank them it would be:
- Laundry
- Moving
- Those stupid articles that make you scroll through a slideshow in order to read them.
This blog post is about #2.
Let me start out by saying I didn't actually move, my parents did. They recently moved out of the house they've lived in for the past 12 years.
Shortly after they accepted an offer on their house, I got one of those phone calls that every 30-something dreads getting that went something like this..."Hey, you know all those boxes you've been storing in the basement for the past 12 years? Can you come get them? Oh, and also, can you go through your childhood memorabilia, too?" Dun...dun...dun...
So while I didn't technically move, I sure felt like I did. My apartment quickly became filled with boxes full of 1980's Barbies, every softball trophy I won between the ages of 6-18, and all of my college books (holy, heavy!)
I of course, procrastinated, and waited until 3 days before the closing to actually go over and get said boxes. By this point, my parents had moved and settled into their new home about an hour away.
As I began to load up the truck, I started to get emotional about saying goodbye to this place. I didn't grow up here, but my daughter did. This was her childhood home. Just as I have a strong connection with my grandparents home, she would someday feel the same way about this place. Being a young mother, I lost count of the number of times I moved out, and back home, and out, and back home over the course of the last decade. And for Carmen, these four walls were always "home."
As I loaded the last box and left the garage door opener on the kitchen counter, I reflected on all of the memories we made here. Carmen's first steps, family parties that centered around the kitchen island, summer days in the backyard running though the sprinkler, and our neighbors who always had ice pops stashed in their garage freezer just for the kiddos.
Saying goodbye was definitely bittersweet for me. I called my mom after I pulled out of the driveway for the very last time to ask if she cried when she left a few days before. Her answer... "No! I was just glad to be finished hauling boxes out of there!" It made me laugh and feel like a complete softy all at the same time.
