I sit in the house one last morning surrounded by boxes in my favorite room, what I have come to call the blue room. It is the front room, the formal living room covered in blue grass cloth wallpaper. I love this room so much. I love the colors. Each piece of furniture. The fabrics on the chairs and pillows. The rug. The wallpaper!! I remember all the time it took to design it. We have an expensive white couch that I bought in fabric built to withstand red wine stains, enough chairs squeezed into this room to host a decent party of friends. I always wanted a white couch in my house. It feels very grownup. I designed this room with the picture in mind of rowdy late night booze gatherings around bottles of wine and plates of cheese. And I did experience this a handful of times. But I never remembered much from this nights. I was always too drunk and blacked out, stumbling around, saying god knows what to the friends I has hosting. Nothing grownup about that.
But this room has not hosted a party in six months, these walls that once saw many a drunken night have laid witness to quieter days in recent weeks. This room has come to be the space where Evan and I steel away and have our morning coffee. We sit and talk, every day. We get up early before the kids are awake and we put our phones away and we just relax together. We have built this into our day as a time to connect and check in, catch each other up and just chat. It has been so nice, since the kids stay up late now. In the old days, I never would have been able to wake up this early, because I was always too hungover. I love mornings now. They are my favorite part of the day.
This morning, Evan and I sat in the blue room one last time. Chairs have been moved off to the sides and boxes are everywhere. But we said cheers with our coffees and looked around at our favorite room one last time. We said goodbye to our house with the kids last night, walking through each room and talking about our memories from over the years. Brayden had a tough time with it, but overall this will be good for us. We are ready to say goodbye and move onto the next chapter.
These walls have seen too much.
Evan and I are ready to find a new blue room. To have coffee on our porch and stare at the river and enjoy many more early mornings in a new, fresh space together with the kids. Time to say goodbye and thank you for being part of this journey.
