My mom is selling her house, so we all got together for one last hurrah this afternoon. Bonnie asked me if I was sad about saying goodbye to the house I grew up in, but I’m not. It hasn’t been home now for longer than it was, and besides that, there’s nothing left in it from my childhood. It’s just an empty husk in the shape of the house I once lived in, like when a piece of wood burns to charcoal, yet maintains its original form. If you touch it, it crumbles.

Still, it’s a little strange to think of some new family making my old home their new home. What will they do with it? Will they appreciate it for what it is, or will they want to change it? Of course, they will, I would, but I doubt we would make the same changes, and any changes that aren’t the changes I would make are, obviously, wrong.

I’ve been trying all day to understand what I’m feeling about this chapter of my life coming to an end, and I think what it is is relief. Or maybe, it’s closure. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, though I don’t really know what the weight was from. It’s like I can move forward without ever needing to look back. When my mom inevitably passes on, this old house and the things contained within its walls won’t become my burden to deal with, and that is extremely comforting to know.

Swimming this final time in the pool I spent so much of my young life in, didn’t hit the same this afternoon as it did in the past, and I was reminded of swimming alone when I was younger, and being disappointed because it wasn’t as much fun as swimming with my friends on the Fourth of July, or my birthday.

It’s like that episode of Full House, when the kids sneak back to summer camp because they had so much fun they didn’t want to go home, but when they get there, it’s dark, and raining, and sad because none of their friends are there. I think that’s proof that our memories and emotions aren’t contained in material possesions, but in the connections we make with each other, and those take up a whole lot less space than some big old 57 year old house.