It is strange how we can become attached to a house, isn't it? The first time I moved (that I can actually remember), I was 20. My parents sold the house I had lived in since I was 6 months old, and moved to the next county over. I came home from school for a weekend, packed up my room, helped move, then went back to school that Sunday afternoon. While we loaded the last of the boxes into our cars and truck, I thought about the life I had inside those walls. I went back in to say goodbye to my home, and I cried. Just briefly...but I cried. The local area's rising crime rate, for a few moments, didn't matter. Greener pastures didn't matter. I was saying goodbye to the place that helped mold me. That is what mattered for those few moments.

Fast-forward 4 years to when my life started crumbling. I moved 5 times in the span of two years. I did not cry at all during any of those moves, because none of the places I was leaving ever really felt like home--they were simply places to lay my head at night.

And now, ten years after my first big move, I'm starting the process with my family. Luke will never remember living here. He won't remember the sounds of the freight train rambling down the tracks, or the ruckus from the neighbors. He won't remember his first Christmas spent in this house. He won't remember the beautiful yellow the maple tree (our only tree) turned each fall. He won't remember the gigantic Rose of Sharon in the front yard, or the rocking chairs on the front porch.

But I will.

Even as I type this, and as much as I have come to loathe living within the city limits, I am tearing up.

This is my home. This is the house that I was able to buy, on my measly teacher's salary, after my life completely fell apart. This is where I started over.

It's where I learned what's really important, where I realized I was (and still am) most definitely in love with Wade, and where I rocked my sweet baby to sleep on countless occasions as I watched him grow from a tiny little baby to a toddler.

On March 21, this is where a "For Sale" sign will be stuck in the front yard, and it is where I will cry like a baby, in spite of myself, when moving day comes.

I do hope that day comes soon.