Have you ever had the chance to visit a house you previously owned or lived in? I can still remember going back years later to look at the house we lived in when I was growing up. It’s an interesting thing to go back, realizing that others have made your home their own and how the house that was really isn’t anymore.
Our old house had new paint and interesting design choices, but the bones of the house and the places where we played and dreamed were the same. About a month ago a friend let us know that our first house was back on the market.
When we moved from our house on the lake I wrote a post on saying goodbye on my old blog. It was the house Alex remodeled with his own hands, the one where so many memories were made, the one where we could only dream of where we are today.
As soon as we knew it was on the market we quickly looked it up, wondering just how it looked. And it’s not the same house. The floors, the kitchen, the view…they are the same. But someone else’s things are there. The choices they’ve made would not have been ours.
And as I pondered the memories, the changes, I realized what is really true. It’s not the house that matters but the memories that are made inside. It’s not the decorating details or the remodels or the old worn fixtures. It’s what is created within the walls that matters. The love, the joy, the laughter, the pain. All of the them come along to the next place. And even more is learned, gathered, experienced, and remembered in the new place.
We’ve lived in three places since we were married 7 years ago and each of them hold precious memories, from lake house to apartment to our current-needs-updating-split level. There has been so much life going on within the walls. A life I wouldn’t trade and it hasn’t mattered, if I admit it deep down inside, what the interior walls have looked like.
Our houses needn’t be perfectly decorated or updated or even organized for meaningful life to happen and beautiful memories to be made.
“Home. Yes, a place. A good enough, pleasant enough place ‘to put my feet up and thank God.’ When we walk in through the door, we are surrounded by an atmosphere. Although we see the ‘bricks and mortar’ first, a home is really made up of the people in it. They either give it an atmosphere or love, joy, and peace or fear, loneliness, sorrow, and anger.” p.63
excerpt from For the Family’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
The atmosphere of our home is not dependent on its walls…it’s dependent on those within it. And I’m grateful for the atmospheres that have been created in each of our homes which have allowed for beautiful memories to be made. And knowing that, I’m glad we moved on, allowing life to continue again somewhere new.
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