Dream On
This past week has been our goodbye tour, visiting all of our favorite haunts, and of course, saying goodbye to our remaining belongings in the house. The estate sale sold quite a bit, but not nearly enough. We had to hire a clean-out specialist to take out the rest of all that remained of 38 years of marriage. Tim handled all of these chores - working with the estate sale folks, as well as the clean-out folks. I just could not handle it emotionally. Of the remaining items, one piece of furniture stung particularly to see rejected by buyers: The Ethan Allen hutch we bought for our dining room when we were married. It was such a beautiful piece of furniture, and it was a source of pride that we had such a sturdy, quality piece in our meager newlywed home. While it's aged in style (dark pine, early American), it is still a really lovely piece of furniture. And, no one wanted it. I was crushed, to say the least.
Also in the rejected items pile were my Christmas village pieces. Anyone who has ever been in our home over the holidays knows how much I cherished my assorted homes/hotels/churches/villagers/etc. The village grew over the years, taking up an entire table in our family room. It would go up right before Thanksgiving, and stay up to the Epiphany - aside from enjoying it so much, it was quite a chore to assemble! It also became a family joke (they never admit it, but they KNOW who did it!) to rearrange villagers into bizarre locations, just to annoy/torture/tease mother dear, and to see how long it would take me to notice their devious machinations.
The house, now being totally cleaned out, is nothing more than an empty shell. It's almost like an egg, when fertilized, has life within it, growing, getting ready to burst forth to become a part of the wide world. For 18 years and seven months, that house held within it a family that was young and growing, and then maturing and expanding. For the past year, we have been working at bursting forth, breaking free of the shell that contained us and held us here in Brookline. And now, the shell has broken and we are free to go forth into the world. All that remains is the shell of a house that no longer resembles the home it has been for so many years, and the echos of laughter and love that blossomed and grew within those four walls. A new, young family is about to take ownership, and we wish them as much love and happiness as we had for so long. The closing date was moved up to July 7th, so they get to begin their new life even sooner, and we get to finally, after 38 years of marriage, be debt-free for the very first time!
Saturday morning, July 1st, we pack up and move on, ready to begin our new adventures. It seems like it's been forever since we started thinking about "what's next" and started planning our life on the road. So many dreams, so much research, so many questions, and now, it's here! We now have new dreams to look forward to, planning out all of the places we want to travel. Dream on!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzTZ76vhnKk
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