This is the house that my (now ex-) husband and I called “The Forever House”…which has become an irony that it’s still hard for me to have a sense of humor about. My best friend knew we were looking and suggested it, despite it being *just* out of our price range. Still, the minute we visited the house we both instinctively knew it was for us. There is a lovely stand of apple trees in the back yard, which is deep enough that you can’t see the house from the back corner of it. I have a vivid, visceral memory of lying on a blanket with my six month old son under those trees, watching bees pollinate everything during a sun-drenched summer afternoon.
It was also in this house that I spent two deeply cold, lonely years waiting for my marriage to heal. I am sure even today I would break into a cold sweat if I had to descend the steps into the basement it holds such pain for me. Moving out of this house was as difficult a step as I’ve ever had to take…and as such the whole of my attachment to it now has a distinctly bittersweet quality.