Closing

Yesterday was our house closing on 275 Valley View Road. It is over and done with now. We sold our house. Mixed emotions (to the point of emotion-overload/sensory-numbness) abound for Braydon and I. The bambinos, on the other hand, seem to be nothing but a-ok. Thank the heavens for that simple true fact. It is, really, the one and only thing that has keep us plugging forward on this journey for the past year. Ultimately, we are very sure, that this has been the right thing for our family.

Still, it is just absolutely crazy what we’ve done, and not a day goes by that we’re not reminded of it (because people — everyday — tell us, “I wouldn’t do that if you paid me a million dollars!”). I’ve finally learned, at age 40, to follow my instincts and let the rattling and shaking of what others think roll off me. But it doesn’t come easy for me. It is a daily struggle.

So, we closed on the house. We closed that chapter. We are officially fully in, 100% in, our new chapter. It is exciting, and scary, and it is calming, and unnerving, all at once.

And it has been a ton of work. Sheer physical labor, hours and hours of taking apart the entire material life that we knew, dissolving a home that I (especially me) had worked so hard to create. It has involved a lot of emotional, spiritual, psychological work. We’ve processed and processed until we can’t process any more. And here we are.

The day before the closing, I picked up the kids from school and took them for a final farewell to the “old house.” Braydon was in Chicago on a work trip, so I did it with them on my own. I tried hard to get them to talk about their feelings. But, basically, they were like, “Mom, we have talked and talked and talked about these feelings for a whole year! We have nothing left to talk about!!!” For them, it just is what it is now. And I am trying to learn from them to just let it be. Sometimes it is important to talk it through. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to force it, there is just nothing else to talk about. And that’s o.k. So, they just played instead.

The boys jumped on their beloved trampoline. They miss it, but they say “it is worth it” to give it up for our new life. Meera wanted to swing (she misses that swing), but after awhile she was done with it and happy to just move on, leaving that swing set behind. She didn’t even look back. Amazing stuff. These kids are just so incredibly incredible that it just blows my mind sometimes.

Inside, with the house completely empty, they had their last dance party in the playroom. This was my favorite room of that house. I have always thought it was just beautiful; I love the light; I love the space; I have always loved that room. I watched them play and dance in there for quite a while. They loved the echo of the empty space as they stomped on the floor and sang at the top of their lungs.

We stopped the car at the end of the driveway for the bambinos to say goodbye to the two birch trees that sit at the entrance to the drive. They had climbed those trees and played in and around them for hundreds and hundreds of hours over the years. They had named the trees, long ago– “Lil” and “Frank.” Owen climbed up high in “Lil” one last time. He wasn’t sad or mad to have to leave her. Just happy to climb her one more time. With the windows rolled down in the car, they yelled as we drove away, “Bye Lil! Bye Frank!!” And that was it.

And then they just wanted to go home. They couldn’t wait to get home. Home is no longer 275 Valley View Road.

275 Valley View is now just a house that we used to live in.

Last night Owen and I were talking on the couch. He said, out of the blue, “Mommy, you thought we’d all be homesick when we moved. Remember? But I wasn’t homesick at all. Now, when I go back to the old house, I’m homesick for home. But I was never homesick here to go back there.”

It is amazing how time moves, chapters turn, things transform, closings happen, openings are found.