The bottom step

Our real estate agent held yet another open house at the old place this afternoon, and as far as I could tell from my bordering on stalker-like drive bys, there were lots of people traipsing in and out of it, but no one who looked at all interested. After it was all over I swung by to make sure the heat had been turned down (it hadn't) and turn off the water in anticipation of the cold snap arriving later this week.

It was dusk, bordering on dark when I arrived, necessitating the turning on of lights around the house. I flipped on the switch to the upstairs hallway and burst into tears. I just sat on the bottom step, as I used to every evening as I talked to my sister or Rebecca on the phone and cried. Tears of hopelessness, tears of sadness, tears of homesickness. Even without the furniture, the giggles, and the drone of sibling bickering, in the dusk, with the lights on, the stairs felt like home.

I really didn't think I would miss the old house, and in day to day life, I don't really. Not the house itself anyway. But I miss life the way it was before we moved. Life with only one mortgage, life when my best friend didn't live an ocean away. Life when M and I didn't snap at each other at the drop of the hat, life when I could sit on the hard wood of the bottom step and just enjoy my home.