you & me

This House Held the Space for Me to Find Myself.

 

We bought our house back in 2014. We had a five-month-old baby. It was a home that I loved from the beginning.

It was a place that felt safe to me, and a place where I loved watching our baby go from baths in the kitchen sink, to baths in the tub. I loved watching her playing in her playpen and then learning to crawl and eventually walk. This house holds the memories of her first footsteps.

Then over the years I watched our baby have other firsts. Like sleeping in her crib for the first time alone and eating. I helped her learn her first words and sang countless lullabies to her as she drifted off to sleep.

This house was the structure that framed our experience of separation and co-parenting. It was the neutral ground as we both found footing for our own paths. It was the place where we argued and cried and hugged. It was the place where I began to lose my best friend. This house holds the memories of a life that resembled normalcy.

And now there is a For Sale sign in the yard. And I am heartbroken. I’ve spent days ruminating over why this loss feels so heavy for me. And I feel like it comes down to this.

It was my home.

It was the first place I have ever lived that felt like home, and I don’t say that lightly. I have always had more of a nomad spirit. But this… this felt different to me.

This house felt like roots in the ground and stability under my feet. The walls of this home hold the stains of my tears and the beat of music in the floors. This house felt like the life I never got to have… you know, the one with two parents and the white picket fence. It was the life I thought I wanted, but even I recognized it was the life I was never going to be content with.

And then as I began to wake up to that realization, this house held the space for me to find myself. It held laughter and meditations, Yoga practices, Disney movies, and My Little Ponies. It held the structure for me to at least still try to give to my own daughter what my entire life felt as though it lacked.

It held movie nights and take-outs.

It held together when I fell apart.

It held me in my brokenness.

And I know it’s time to let go and move on, but I’m going to miss this house.

I’m going to miss this yellow kitchen that we painted when we moved in. I’m going to miss that vibrant green wall that we chose as a cover-up to the purple. And just like when you moved out and I missed having noise, I already know that when I move out, I’m going to miss the silence.

This house let me breathe in the silence. It is the last piece of our broken marriage for me to grieve. And yes, I know that I am the one who wanted things to be this way, but I’m still healing from the loss of everything.

And so as these last days between me and this house come to a close, it continues to hold my tears and help me heal as I continue to stay aware that all good things must come to an end.

But this house… in this town, with all its beauty… this house will always remain sacred and special to me. I am forever grateful I got to experience normal, even if it was for just a blink of an eye.

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Natalie Sophia is a self-proclaimed writer, healer, yogini. Her mission in life is to heal and be healed. She loves to laugh, to feel and to write. She began her journey of awakening a few years ago, and though there are times she longs to go ‘back to sleep’, she knows she has work to do. Her work and her passion are one and the same, and she hopes to inspire others on their life path to attend to their deepest longings as a soul in a human body. Natalie feels that life is meant to be enjoyed, not endured. She knows that pain can be inevitable, but there is always choice in the story created from that pain. Feel free to check out more from Natalie on her website and Facebook.

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