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Easy to Leave

October 12, 2007 | Category: Thy Wedded Life



familyus175b.jpgMy husband spent much of his growing up years moving from small apartment to small apartment with his working dad.

Despite all the years since, I suspect CD still harbors this deep need to roost. To be rooted, and never left.

Life has very little to do with what we see when we look into the mirror at ourselves.

The mirror sees a pink-haired woman, with too many curves and slightly creased with age.

But I see more than a reflection. I see a rebel, a mother, a free spirit, a lover. I see the scars from falls I took in small strips across my skin. And in my heart. I see my own eyes, and all the stories they hold.

I can't know what he sees. In me. In himself.

Other than this gnawing sense, that where you live shouldn't be a place easy to leave.

No amount of time could hope to completely erase this from him.

No amount of love, or help, or maturity can wipe clean the truths we cling to as children.

Maybe that's why it's so hard for him to think of selling this house. Why it is so incomprehensible to his heart that this home, that holds so many of the memories of us as a family, would belong to someone else.

And I begin to see it now.

Tomorrow, Bear tests up in karate to a blue belt. On Sunday, we take our annual trip to the pumpkin farm. When will there be time, he asks me, to get to that list of things we need to finish on the house.

And there it is, behind his eyes.

I begin to see it now.

This is home in a way that no place has been to him since he was his own son's age.

This is the place I always come back to, the bed I share with him. This is where we eat dinner. This is where Bear lays out his Magnetix creations for us to admire. These are the boxes with the winter sweaters. And over there is the bin with the Halloween decorations.

And as awareness began to dawn in my foggy head, I reached out to him.

It isn't each other we're leaving, I promise. If we sell this house and move - wherever we go, it will be home just as much as this place has been.

He nodded.

For years, I have been ready to go. To kick off a new adventure.

But it isn't only me that has to go.

And he's finding this house, hard to leave.


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Tagged: Change, Moving, Dreams, Childhood, Marriage, Life Corporate, Mommy, Life
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Comments


Beautiful post!

And you're good for understanding and then reaching out.

Posted by: Monica C. on October 18, 2007 06:50 PM


You are such a beautiful writer! I stumbled upon you by accident looking up things on Google. I thought I'd stop for a moment and scan down a few posts but got captured by this post and had to read it through to the end. It brought tears to my eyes. It made me think of my husband. His father left him. Thank you for sharing this post :)

~ Valaine

Posted by: Valaine on October 17, 2007 03:28 PM


Beautiful post from another corporate mommy, who hasn't had the guts to do what you have done (or can't.) I love reading your stories. I hope I get to read more of them (and see them in print.)

Posted by: Courtney on October 15, 2007 09:42 PM


Thanks so much for this writing. It is indeed beautiful. I'm glad you have eyes to see and a heart that understands.

And soon, he will know that what you say is true - home is where y'all are...all together.

Posted by: Janie on October 13, 2007 09:00 PM


The way you write is amazing. Instead of going back into the corporate world you should think about doing a book. You inspire me.

Posted by: Mrs Groovy on October 12, 2007 06:31 PM


What an absolutely beautiful post.

I can relate, in a strange way. My mother didn't leave, but rather died when I was three. I spent many years being shuffled first to my grandmother, then back to my father and his new wife, and then as a family moving several times. Never feeling at home in any of the places we lived. I am an only child and extremely shy and never made fast friends along the way.

Finally, when I met and married my current husband (I had one before and he and I moved frequently, too) I found home. I married a man who had only lived in a different place the four years he was in the service. His parents built a new house when he got out and he moved back into the homestead. He also farms, and you don't pick up and move the farm, so farmers stay put. Fast forward to three years ago. We finally decided to build a new house. We are only two miles away from the old one, but the old one was where my husband had always lived, and where I had lived the longest. Where I had set down roots and raised all of my children. The memories are deep.

I'm sorry to get so long...

I just know that if our son hadn't moved into the old house and I'd had to let it go to strangers, it would be much worse than it was. As it was, it took some adjustment... but now we are fine. As will you all be. "Home is where the heart is"... is very true.

Posted by: sue on October 12, 2007 02:45 PM