Lao Tzu wrote, “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”

Today, we closed on our property. We have not lived there for almost as long as we did live there.

We moved in when Lady J was 2 weeks old.  It quickly became home and it was meant to be our forever home. It had everything we needed at the time and potential for so much more: The upstairs was unfinished, so we finished it prior to the arrival Bud. We had 2 contractors walk through, the day before “the event” to give us estimates on adding a nursery for K-Mad who was just 16 weeks along in utero.

We had amazing neighbors. The guys would help with lawn care and golf together when possible. We would have them over for BBQs and football games. Their pool was open to us on hot summer days. Their children helped plow the driveway before my husband returned home from work. They came to help with the kids when the first trimesters got the best of me. They were great neighbors. The kind you want in your forever home, in your forever neighborhood…

Unfortunately, it is not our forever home, not our forever neighborhood. It has been close to 2 years since “the event.”  The property is nothing more than a charred foundation with a fence, an empty hole, a void…

There was once a possibility of rebuilding. There was once a glimmer of returning.

It’s not often that we go back to the neighborhood. It’s too painful. Too many memories of what once was, too many plans of what was supposed to be…

When I close my eyes and think about the possibility of a new home, all I see is this one.  I can’t imagine another layout, a different backsplash, new bedding… I know that will change in time, when we do have a new house and begin making it a home, but for today, for now, for this moment in time this is all I see…

So here’s to new beginnings. This painful book is far from its end, but at least this chapter is closed.

To good neighbors…may we be so lucky to find them again!