THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

The weekend before last we went to see a house we built in our minds as the house of our dreams even though we knew by pictures alone that it would need work to achieve that status. We discussed the possibility of another child to fill one of the additional bedrooms and spoke Christmas tree locations where we would gather around lit by its glow and we sat in silence lost in the could be’s and the maybe’s and the what if’s until we arrived at the location of this particular home.

Its not that we have intentionally been looking to move because we haven’t. We knew when we bought this property of ours where we currently reside that it wouldn’t be our forever home, but we didn’t set an expiration date in stone. We just stumbled across the listing for this other house and mentally moved ourselves in… until we saw it in person. Once we laid eyes on the house it was then we remembered pictures are worth a thousand words and none of those we thought of initially could be used to describe what we were seeing.

Occasionally reality presents itself in such a bold way that it cannot be ignored; such is the case when we put our vehicle in park in the driveway of an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere and knew immediately that it wasn’t the one. This was definitely not the house of our dreams where we would raise a child and entertain the thought of another one. This was not the space we would grow old together as we documented memories over the years in frames on the walls. This wasn’t it, this was not our house.

We left a little defeated with our toddler in the backseat. We pulled into our current driveway, the dwelling we purchased together just over three years ago and found ourselves smiling at the house we brought our baby home to. The house containing the living room where she took her first steps and the kitchen that watched meals evolve from puréed pears to solids and the bedroom where she rests her head in a crib that has since transitioned to a toddler bed and the backyard that helped our little girl celebrate the first year of her life by hosting a party for our closest friends and family.

Sometimes we have to chase a dream to discover a path back to what really matters. Sometimes what we’re looking for is right in front of us and sometimes we need a gentle reminder that home is where the heart is. While we imagine the day will come where we box our belongings and move to another house that allows us to spread our wings a bit more, for now we’re happy right where we are. For now, home is sweet and there’s no other place like it.  

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