The house

“My” Paris is my favorite part of the house. 

"You loved this house," he said. I could hear disdain and incredulity in his voice. 

I had said I got stressed out returning to the house. I was there on a recent day to paint trim to mollify the buyer's bank appraiser. I got upset over something and yelled. Dropped some f-bombs. It wasn't a stellar moment. I acted like a bitch. 

Later, he confronted me about what I'd said about the house. 

Maybe I loved the house. I loved the big rooms, the big yard, all the space.  We were living in a two-bedroom duplex with three kids under the age of 10. Of course I loved 1,911 square feet of finished living space. 

I loved that it was mine, and I could paint it wild colors — which I did. I made the breezeway into "my" Paris. I gardened. I raked. Heck, I even occasionally mowed. I shoveled. I swept. I cleaned. I organized. I decorated. 

I loved sitting on the patio at the end of the day with a glass of wine. 

I loved working on projects. 

I loved being outside. 

I think I loved what it represented. Freedom. A place of our own. A refuge. 

But I hated that it could never be exactly what I wanted. We never had the money to put in carpet or new windows. We never remodeled the bathrooms. We never replaced the paneling that lined nearly every wall. My dad put a new front deck on for us just this summer to meet the homeowner's insurance requirement. We agreed we should have done it years ago. 

But we didn't. We got by. We made do. 

And I hated that. 

So it's no wonder that now that I'm moving on, I don't love the house. I don't know that I ever did. Now it represents failure and lost dreams. 

Maybe someday I'll remember it more fondly. 

But not now. I'm glad it's going. And I'm glad I'm going, too.