Your heart and your home.

Displayed here are a handful of my favorite photos. Why are they my favorites? Because they happened right in my home, the place my heart lies.

This week we are in the process of selling that home. Which basically means that my heart has been a constant state of mush all week. Even as I was cleaning it to get it ready to list I would have such strong memories flood my mind. I won't be able to touch these places again. The area next to my master bath in my bedroom is where I collapsed from transition when I was in labor with my second child. The sun room is where my (now passed) 15 year old doxie would lay to soak in all the warmth. The living room is where my first son started to crawl, took his first steps, and entertained us with a million different dance moves. The garage is where we brought both of our newborn babies through to enter into our home for the first time. Everything significant up until this point has happened in that home. So what do I cling to? I cling to my pictures.

I always want to remember the way our front door enveloped us in dancing rainbows in the evening. And the long hallway (which I hated for so long) was something I began to love once I embraced it. The sun room, ah, the sun room. It would glow so warmly first thing in the morning. The backyard, though small, was where we spent many of our days. The epitome of childhood was defined in our backyard; kiddie pools, sidewalk chalk, digging in the dirt, swinging in the hammock are just a few of my favorite memories. The kitchen was home to some of my favorite pieces (my pretty tea cups, my grey hutch and blue tea cabinet) and it had 2 large windows with a window seat that I pretty much just used for light.

All of this to say that your home might be where your heart is, because your loved ones find their home there too, but those four-ish walls represent a piece of who you are in that exact moment of your life. There were times I cursed that house, but our memories were made there and that will forever hold a special place in my heart. Did I snap pictures of my empty house with my cell phone before walking out for one of the last times ever? Of course. But the photos that will mean something to me are the ones that reveal that we *lived* there. We lived and we loved and we laughed and we cried. The photos that make me feel those things all over again are the ones I will forever cherish.