My parents are selling their house. It goes on the market this week.
They have been in that house for 22 years.
Though I consider our craftsman house in Oakland, CA to be my “childhood home” – the one that pops up in recurring dreams and nostalgias, I have spent the greater lot of my years living in or coming home to this house in Chapel Hill.
It is a suburban house – the kind to which I never thought my central urban family would concede – but despite my initial determination to judge, it has been a wonderful, warm, loving, bright and homey home.
Right now, I am high on the excitement of the preparation for the listing. I am thrilled by the talk of design for the new home. I am giddy as I visit the land my parents bought on the river in Saxapahaw. But I know that soon, the messy, sentimental, hard-loving part of myself will take over and mourn the closing of this chapter. I will feel the crumpled discomfort of change and want to not let go.
Our time with this house is ending, but it is a good family house, and for some other, now-young family, it will welcome them in and keep them warm.
(I will include pictures when the house goes on the market in a few days – in case anyone is interested/curious)
The Story Changes 