Last Saturday, we celebrated Nate's birthday at our townhouse for the last time. One of my very best friends asked me as she dropped off her son how I was feeling about this being the last party in our townhouse. Did I feel sad? I smiled, shook my head, and laughed, "Not really." I feel a little guilty about not feeling sadder. My poor townhouse. She's been a good house. I recognize she has no feelings; although if she did, she would obviously be a girl. While she has been a good home, I always knew this relationship wasn't meant to last. While I did love her when we first moved in, I always knew we would leave her.
We purchased our townhouse in May 2005. Knowing we would like to start a family and feeling pretty confident that I wanted to stay at home for at least a few years with our future children, we opted for a modest starter home. When we were moving in, I was most excited about having our own washer and dryer on the second floor. After nearly six and a half years of begrudgingly sharing a laundry room with inconsiderate apartment dwellers who often left their unmentionables for far too long in the washer or dryer, I was delighted by the prospect of doing laundry whenever I felt compelled without trudging up and down several flights of stairs. What can I say, I'm a simple girl.
Over the past nine years, we have completed a lot of home improvement projects and done our best to make this house feel like a home. As we remodeled room after room though, my thought process was always, "What would be the most cost-effective, universally appealing way to improve this room?" Given our townhouse sold in less than a month, I think we did a pretty good job.
So what will I miss about 110 Pin Oak Court? I asked my husband this question last week, and he paused to think for quite a while before responding, "Having trash pick-up twice a week?" He has been carefully plotting our escape plan and dreaming of a two car garage, bigger yard, and a shed for more than a few years. He also isn't the most sentimental of men. What will I miss about our first home? I will certainly miss a few of our neighbors. I will most certainly miss the beautiful Perkiomen Trail which runs through the middle of our development. Over the past three years, I have fallen in love with the two and a half mile stretch that I sincerely never grow tired of running. While some may find it boring to run the same stretch of trail, I am completely enamored with its ever-changing beauty. I marvel when the buds first gather on the branches in early spring, the lush canopy of trees provide a welcome respite from the summer sun, and in the fall, how could a person not be impressed by nature's autumnal show? I must admit, I'm partial to the winter trail. I love running in the invigorating cold, and the woods that surround the trail remind me of my childhood when I would help my dad cut down trees for our wood burning stove and tap maple trees for syrup.
I can muster a slight twinge of nostalgia for our little townhouse, when I think of when we brought our little babies home from the hospital and officially became a family here. But as I marvel at how much my boys have grown over the past seven years, I know the time has come for our family to move on to a bigger home with a wonderful driveway for playing basketball, a cul-de-sac for street hockey, and a sloped yard that should be absolutely perfect for an awesome slip n slide. I am so excited to start making hopefully decades of memories in our new home.
In two weeks, we will officially say good-bye to 110 Pin Oak Court. She has been a good home, and I hope her next owners treat her well. While she was not our one and only, I will do my best to respect her and remember her fondly.
