like it never even happened

In case there were any doubts, let me clarify: I don't like moving.

I mean I really, really don't like it.

I don't like making decisions in general. It feels like way too much power. (Doesn't somebody else know better than me how many kids I should have? Seriously.) And moving is kind of a biggie, especially when it's voluntary.

And then there's the preparation. Deciding when to make it "official". Getting your house ready to sell. Getting it even MORE ready to sell. Cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning some more. Keeping it spotlessly clean for showings, on top of everything else that already kept me busy till late in the evenings. Accepting the reality that you only have a few weeks left in your house, and all that must be done in that time. Finding a new house. Moving into that one. Cleaning it. Cleaning the old one! Driving back and forth. Saying goodbye to each facet of our old life, piece by piece by piece.

It is hard, and busy, and just sad. And, I realized today, it feels kind of insulting. To move out and clean out every piece of our life, as if it was never here. To look at our house now, nobody lives here. No dogs ever ran in and out with muddy feet and shed profusely all over. No babies crawled to the wall and left handprints as they pulled themselves up. Nobody accomplished anything, made anything, or did anything. Nobody talked or fought or loved. Nothing happened.

A house is just a house, I guess. It's just a place. But it's a very personal place. (Sort of like underwear.) The things we did here left messes and scuffs and stains. And to have to scrub my family out of the floors and wipe us off the walls so completely feels a little unjust, I think. I know it has to happen, and I wouldn't want to move into anybody else's dirty house, of course. Selling a house just turns an extremely personal place into a commodity, and it just feels wrong all the way around it.

And in two days it won't be ours anymore. A new family will come and make their own scuffs and marks as they live and love here. And it will be their home just as much as it was ours. And that's okay.

It just makes me sad.