Home Sweet Home

Dear House,

We’ve spent a lot more time together than I anticipated, over these last months. I have to be honest, I wasn’t exactly thrilled when I found out that you’d be the only place I saw for days on end. But these long days together have helped me realize just how thankful I am for you.

You aren’t perfect, not by any means. There are fingerprints on the wall going up the stairs. The baseboards in the family room were supposed to be repainted several years ago, after we painted over the forest green from the previous owners, but we haven’t quite gotten around to it, so paint drips adorn them. The towel holder in the downstairs bathroom is sitting in a cabinet, because the kids kept pulling on the towel and slowly yanking it from the wall. The screen in the back door is ripped; it started out as a tiny little tear and then curious little boys tugged and tugged on it.

I have a Pinterest board full of ideas for how I want to redo the living room, but for now it’s a mish-mash of hand me down furniture, with a Target lamp that is standing crooked because a four year old decided it looked like a firepole. The couch cushions rarely stay in place, and lost Legos and matchbox cars have made permanent homes under the couch. There’s a tile that’s cracked on the kitchen floor from a child throwing a stainless steel water bottle in the midst of a tantrum, scratches on the hardwoods from children racing toy cars and dragging chairs to the kitchen counter, and the list of home improvement projects I want to do constantly grows, but rarely gets anything checked off of it.

I’ve been meaning to figure out how to keep plants alive so I can fill the front of our house with bright blooms, and I’ve been meaning to spruce up our backyard. I have Pinterest dreams, but I have yet to put them into action.

No, House, you aren’t perfect. You don’t have the wide front porch with rocking chairs and a front porch swing that I dream of, the bonus room where I can toss all of the toys out of sight, the window seat I’ve wanted since I was a little girl, or the screened in porch perfect for insect-free outdoor dining.

Despite all of that; you are our home. You have sheltered us, you have given us a comfortable place to wait out the pandemic. You have held our dreams and late night conversations about our future. You have been here for us as we brought tiny new babies home from the hospital, and laid awake, listening for them to stir in their cribs. You’ve given me a place to bake birthday cakes and a place to conduct an unexpected switch to virtual school. Your kitchen counters have held art projects and little boys fighting over who gets to measure the flour. Your backyard has given us a place to stretch our legs and maintain our sanity during these long months. You’ve given us a place to lay our heads, to host our friends, and to grow our family.

Years from now, my children won’t remember all the imperfections, and I probably won’t either. Instead we’ll recall the laughter, the wobbling first steps taken on your floors, the car races run in circles through the downstairs, and the bedtime stories read within your walls. We will tell stories about the backyard campouts and football games and Easter egg hunts, and those crazy months of 2020, where we stayed home for weeks on end.

Will we still live here then? Will grandchildren be running through the house, bringing back sweet memories? Will we have moved to somewhere new? That part of the story isn’t written yet, but for however many years we have here, thank you for being our home, sweet home.

Love,

Laura