A different perspective

A friend of mine is writing a book on scrapbooking, specifically relating to homes and houses. She asked me to compose a two page spread for the book, knowing my crazy mad scrapbooking skillz. Not an unusual request.

The twist - the spread has to be about my home, but more so about how I feel about it now that I'm divorcing, and moving to Mexico.

I went to the house yesterday to take pictures when Troy wasn't there, and it was an erie experience. I initally thought that I had no emotional attachment to the house because we were planning on leaving anyway. But as I went through each room and took pictures, I began to think of many different things - and even more emotions came to the surface. And yes, it did involve crying :)

I essentially started to look at things not for what they were, or what took place in them, but for what DIDN'T happen. Like our front porch with two chairs on it - that we never took the time to sit in and enjoy each other and our neighborhood. Or our kitchen, which we never found time to cook together. As I walked through, it became not a house, but a reminder of all the things that went wrong in our marriage.

Although it was our first real home - it was the first place we stayed at for more than a year - it just felt empty. The house was filled with all kinds of "stuff", material things, items we wanted or just had to have; but it was empty. Kind of like our marriage.

Funny how a seemingly simple exercise can change your perspective on things. I don't think I'll look at that house the same. And now, I'm even more anxious to sell it.