Coming "home"

Well, I'm home. It's funny, now that I'm back from my sojourn, I feel some of the peace melting away. Like maybe I left some of it in Hilton Head, at the ocean.

Going home from anywhere now just seems weird. My car and my heart still want to drive the way I did for 17 years, back to my Kingswood home - the place that was really home, the place where my daughters grew up, the place where we made that house a home for four, the place where we invested love, money and time. We had much laughter and many tears in that home. It saw lots of life. But then, it stopped being a home. When it was just me there, it became a place where I didn't want to be, an empty place, a sad place.

My new home doesn't feel like home. I've made it cute and charming and cozy and it's a nice new place but it's still not home.

I approach my garage and I almost dread pushing the opener. The first thing I see is that half the garage is piled high with furniture and tubs and boxes. It's a fraction of the stuff that used to be in that other home; the home I loved with the brand new kitchen, and the beautiful backyard oasis and the neighbors I loved and where my kids loved coming home to.

I had to throw and give away so much stuff. With every drawer, closet, box and tub, I was forced to confront years and years (32.5 of them) of memories. It was brutal. I read old love letters and read through every single greeting card from him: 33 years of greeting cards from every occasion, and holiday and those "just because" cards. (More on that in a future post.) I had to sell really nice things and furniture for pennies on the dollar. What I couldn't bear to sell or donate, came with me. It's piled in one half of my 2-car garage.

I'm starting to wonder if that was as smart thing to do. Every single time I drive into my garage, I feel a sickening jolt in my stomach. I see years of memories piled up and it is so unnatural, so surreal, so sad. I see a reminder of the death of my marriage. A reminder that says "yep, you had to leave that home and you live here now and I know it doesn't feel like home but get used to it. It is.

Today I'm feeling a little sorry for myself, can you tell? I don't want to be here. I want to be in my home with my husband and my girls and son-in-law and granddaughter coming over to swim and have a cookout. It's a hot day, a perfect end-of-the-pool-season weekend. And there I go again: back to talking about my old home that now belongs to another family.

I've been in the apartment now for 2.5 months. It's only been 4.5 months since this hell started. Maybe when some more time goes by, I will be able to call it home. I hope so. Because this living without a "home" thing is hard.