What is Home?

Home.

I’ve been thinking about this word a lot lately. Is it just a structure of four walls? Or is it what happens inside the walls? Is it the memories that they hold?

These walls have seen a lot over the last 7 years. Some bad, mostly good. Conversations and fights. Snuggles and crying in each other’s arms. Staying up way too late and laughing until it hurt

We brought our babies home here. Watched them grow up here.

They learned how to walk, talk, and ride bikes here.

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We hosted dinner parties and celebrations with our friends and family. 

We’ve had countless dance parties together, made cookies together and ate cookie dough until our tummies hurt.

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We’ve fought hard in this place. Struggled just to stay here. There were times when we didn’t know if we’d make it. It seemed impossible.

We learned how to love. How to parent, how to be a family.

My health declined and I was in and out of the hospital. Uncertainty, fear, and doubt. I started my health journey. Learned to love myself and my body.

We are not the same people we were when we walked into our home for the first time.

Each cell in our bodies have renewed. It's a beautiful picture. As we start a new adventure in life, we walk out of our home completely new people ready to say yes to what's next. We were so excited to find this place, We also went through seasons of wanting to move or have change. The shaggy carpet was the worst! ...but it's also where Parker and Emery learned to roll over, crawl, and walk. It gave us a place to dance, play games, and have sleepovers.

The mismatched furniture would drive me crazy! I just wanted my home to look beautiful. But the table was where we ate dinner as a family, blew out candles for birthdays, hosted friends, and homeschooled. It's where tears would flow trying to figure out how to make ends meet, businesses were built on that table, it's where things gathered to be put away but it's where we gathered.

The couch was always dirty. Life and cream are not the best match. I wanted a nicer one but that corner seat was the seat we all fought over. It was big enough for movie nights, it was there for early morning journaling cuddled up in the corner feeling the heat from the fireplace writing my heart out on thousands of pieces of paper. 4am wake-ups that led to crazy business ideas or reading books to grow and develop. THAT SPACE WAS SACRED.

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Our mattress was on the ground for what felt like FOREVER. i felt so embarrassed for not having a frame but for so long we struggled with money. But that bed heard more early morning outcries for change and for help than any other place.

We fought hard and we loved hard. that bed held forgiveness, fighting for our marriage, and hope that everything would be okay.

It heard the deepest cries after a miscarriage, it held me when my body was failing me, and it also was where dreams of adventure started.

Life started on White Cloud lane. We rented a house but we created a home.

‍So as i look back, I'm thankful for the fights, the laughs, the love that our walls hold. It's hard leaving a place you know that the carpet will be replaced and the walls will be painted over.

Look at every corner and memories flood in. The days we take for granted are the days we now wish we could hold on to just a little more. to savor all the "firsts", to remember the giggles, to soak up the moments that made our house a home.

Goodbye, White Cloud Lane, thank you for the years of growth, the challenges, and the beauty in coming together to figure out life.

Now we are leaving this house for the last time. And we leave it with a new energy, a new vibration. I pray that those who come after us and make their home here will feel that energy. That it will bless them and help them make it their home. 

This house is where our family started. Here, within these walls. But now we get to set out on a new adventure, and we get to make a new home. But really, home is not a place, it’s not a building, or just where we lay our heads at night. Home is each other. It’s where you feel safe and free to be yourself. To make mistakes and learn from them. To figure out who you are. 
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Home is a place to invite others to share in your joys and your sadness. Home is a space to learn and to grow.

Home is love. 

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