What makes a house a home?

It's been an emotional couple of weeks.We sold our marital home last week after being on the market for 2 long years. It was to me both a great relief and a great sadness. The final piece of the divorce. The final reminder that alas life does not always turn out as planned and that some dreams simply do not come true. No one enters into a marriage wanting it to end. No one buys a home wanting to walk away from it.

I haven't lived in that home in nearly 3 years and I returned only when was necessary. I found it painful to go there for it reminded me of the many failures I had experienced. And truth be told, the house never really felt like a home to me. I could never pinpoint why.

When we moved in we tore out rugs, ripped down wallpaper, repainted, recovered, restored, refurnished. And still, all the while I felt like I was living in a house - not a home - someone else's home perhaps, but certainly not my own. Despite my own colors and fabrics and furnishings I always felt as though I was wandering through someone else's house, someone else's things. I tried to ask myself why I felt that way but I could never reach an answer. The home that we'd left, that we had outgrown fit us like a perfect pair of jeans.It was perfect but getting too small for our growing family.

Perhaps we weren't ready to move. We thought we were. We thought that a house of nearly 4,500 square feet - double the size of the home we just left - was what we needed. Looking back, I wonder what I was thinking... Who needs that much space? We used about half the rooms... and maybe that's what it was. Maybe it was large - too large - and impersonal... We needed elbow room but we didn't need to be as far apart as the four corners of the world!

We had a huge playroom over a 3 car garage - It's where we would banish the kids to with their Nerf guns, loud music and their screaming and hollering. But the kids never stayed up there for too long. They always found their way back down to us, in the large but comfortable family room where the over-sized L-shaped sectional, club chair and ottoman had a way of sucking us in and keeping us there... together... for most of the years... Our beautiful living room was almost never used. In the front corner, facing the grand 2 story entryway, my Steinway stood proudly, greeting everyone who entered our home. When we entertained the glow from the fireplace warmed the atmosphere. Adjoining the living room was a generous dinging room that easily housed my dining room table and all 12 chairs along with a few other pieces of furniture.

We used that room quite often when we entertained, over the holidays and often for family dinners. It was one of my favorite rooms of the house. After dinner, or lunch, or whatever meal, Alexander, my youngest - who was very young at the time, would wander over to the piano and play at the keyboard. He had never had lessons and never knew what he was doing and yet he never sounded like a child banging ... He always managed to created the sweetest sounds. My mother would urge me to get him signed up for lessons... Sadly I never took advantage of that - and that may be one of my greatest regrets of all time. And sadly, the piano is no longer mine or in my family.

Our kitchen was large and roomy and had great flow. It was my hope that we would one day overhaul it completely but she was functional and this is where we probably spent most of our time as a family. The children would sit at our table and do homework or crafts or paint while I worked or cooked. I did quite love to cook in that kitchen and the meals that came from her ovens (yes we had two!) and stove-tops were both a delight to make and a delight to eat.

I thought the upstairs to be cold and uninviting and no matter what personal touches I added, I especially couldn't get comfortable in that part of my home.

I was in the house for three years, and for those three years I felt like a stranger in my home. It was the oddest experience. It was unsettling, for sure.

It was in that home that my marriage started to unravel... And while I am sure the unraveling had started long before, the threads were getting longer and longer... and any semblance of fabric was now almost nonexistent... Threadbare.

I often compare a marriage to a home. They both need foundations that are strong and in tact and always ready to support all that they must carry. Next we have the walls. 4 solid walls that offer protection and safety from the harm lurking around, and a roof to keep the elements away and hold the walls together. Without these pieces, and without a strong foundation, the house, and a marriage will certainly come toppling down.

Now there are many failed marriages which do not end in divorce. But I wouldn't want to be in one of those. I wouldn't want to be in a marriage where the foundation is cracked and there is no shelter from the storm, from the anger, sadness and resentment that live within those 4 walls.

I wonder... I wonder if I never really felt safe or protected in that house. I only lived in that house for 3 years and while we had many wonderful moments and created many wonderful memories, it seemed such a sad place to for me to be. And so when I left I was more than eager to get out. I was eager to get out and move into a home, even a temporary one, that would offer me comfort and solace and hope. And small as she is, and temporary as she may be... I do have that for now.

Last week I went back, one last time, to the large home that sits proudly on top of the hill. Save for a few items in boxes, a couple of tables and the piano, that I had come to remove, the home was empty. The movers had come and gone. The cleaners had come and gone. There was not a crumb or spec of dust for as far as the eye could see. Closets had been emptied and the cupboards were all bare. I walked through the long and narrow hallways, through the large and now vacant rooms. I admired my color choices, the ivories, beiges, sages, leaf greens, deep blues, and periwinkles. I admired how the color choices flowed so well from one room to another. I could picture the furniture perfectly placed. And then, as though I had never seen or felt before, I saw the children when they were young running through the house, laughing and screeching. I heard their giggles, their footsteps, their shrieks and shrills... I saw them at the table, in front of the television, in their beds... I saw them living and growing and being children. My memories were clear - not the least bit cloudy. I heard music. I heard the smoke detectors go off after my failure to set the timer when something was in the oven... I heard my ex husband chiding... "Oh, Mommy must be cooking again!" I heard the constant hum of the old energy-sucking Sub Zero and the never ending banging of wet clothes in the dryer.I heard the children bickering and pots clanging and the family room doors sliding open to the deck. I could smell the the aromas from simmering pots and freshly baked goodies.

I could feel the heat and the warmth of the fireplaces in the winter. I could feel the presence of my children... I continued to walk through the rooms. I stood in the kitchen, under the over-sized sky lights by the big bay window that looked out onto the expansive back yard. I had chosen Benjamin Moore's Leaf Green because when we sat in that large nook we felt as though we were outdoors. And when the snow started to fall... what a magnificent sight that was! I looked all around me... I saw the ovens where I baked Birthday cakes and holiday dinners... I saw my desk, now empty and bare, that housed my "piles" of papers and bills and notes and projects. And behind me, the dining room - the large chair rail and the shadow striped walls were a marked improvement over the horrific plaid fabric walls that we tore down. The chandelier hung directly in front of me... staring me in the eyes as though to say "Ah, now you see it! See all that you nearly missed!" And I did! And I was! I felt like I was seeing so much of this for the very first time... I had been going through the motions... my head and my heart had been elsewhere for so long, for so many years - I had been preoccupied, buried in pain and sorrow, and yet despite that the mind remained strong, clear and focused. And so what if I was just seeing this all now for the first time... At least I was seeing it!

I strolled into the living room and paused there again. This time I looked not at the room but outside where the swing set still stood. I could see the children swinging and climbing... I could see the Easter eggs hidden in the stone walls just beyond. And then I wandered back to the piano. I stood there and noticed how bare she seemed without our carefully curated collection of photographs. I wonder what I would have done or said had I known that would be the very last time I would see her...

Out the windows, just next to where she rested, I looked out at the massive hill on which our house stood.... I could see the children running, rolling and sledding down. I had stood there many times watching the snow fall all around our neighbor's red barn and each and every time I would think to myself, that that was a sight of which I would never tire... And I never did.

Back out into the entryway I saw the large stair case. I saw the children eagerly waiting at the top for their cue to come down to see what Santa had brought them. And I saw the image of my youngest, a baby at the time, dangling his toy over the banister where it would come crashing down on our collection of Nutcrackers, breaking many of them... And dare I say it... it was that very moment where my world and my marriage would turn upside down - crack open and become wounded like those wooden soldiers. That very image is still so fresh and raw in my mind, and not wanting to focus on that moment and not wanting that to be the last memory of the large home on the hill I headed to the front door. I looked at my piano on my left, smiled, and then closed the door behind me one last time.

The house and the hill are now a part of my past. The memories are still mine and they take up no room and will travel with me wherever I go. And with all the sadness and pain that I experienced in that house, I was so glad that the happy thoughts greeted me and bade me farewell. I hope that my children have happy thoughts as well.