Goodbye, House

To the People Who Now Own/Will Someday Own My House,

We bought this house in October of 2008, fresh out of school, with my student loans in our pockets.  It was not the first place we lived together, but it was the first home we ever owned. 

When we saw the house for the first time, I was skeptical.  The kitchen was covered in red and white gingham and looked like a picnic tablecloth gone terribly wrong.  The living room and dining room floors were orange and as glossy as a gymnasium.  All of the bedrooms were adorned with nasty, stained carpet.  All of the ceilings were covered in a thick layer of popcorn.  We spent nearly a year peeling wall paper, refinishing hardwood floors, painting walls, and tiling bathroom floors before we moved in.  I love this house.  

For most of the time we lived here, I taught high school English at North Lenoir High School.  My husband worked as a credit analyst for The Little Bank, conveniently located right down the hill.  

When I was 7 months pregnant, we added a brick pathway from the driveway to the front door, because I got tired of everyone coming to my back door.  (Little did my West-Coast-self know, Southerners will use the back door every time, bricked path or not.)  People driving by used to call concerned, because they saw my pregnant-self hauling bricks across the yard in a wheelbarrow (they did the same when I mowed the lawn and laid mulch).    

We brought our little boy home from the hospital to this house in 2010, and I rocked him to sleep in a room painted baby blue at the end of the hall.  There were sailboats framed on the walls.  It was here, in the house you now own, that he took his first steps, said his first words.  

We sold the house in 2012 when my husband accepted a job in the Raleigh area.  Even though we never intended to live here forever, I cried when we put it on the market.  I also cried when it sold.  Part of my heart will always be here, in Kinston, NC, in a house with a sunroom that faces West Highland Avenue.  

I know this house isn’t perfect.  I know it’s old:  the walls are plaster, the attic stairs can be terrifying, and the kitchen floor slopes.  I know these things.  But I still love this house, and I hope you love it, too. 

We had good times and bad times in this house, but the laughter definitely outweighed the tears.  

Please be good to this house; it deserves a family who loves it.

Sincerely,

A Woman Who Has a Hard Time With Goodbyes