This is the space where I am supposed to write about what it’s like leaving this house; Got to be honest. I don’t know how to do that.

Some things… They feel too big to tie into a few lines of text. I like to think I’m a writer, I should be able to do that, right?

But maybe I’m too close to it. I’ve heard that you don’t recognize the big moments in your life as they actually happen. It’s only with time that you see them for what they truly are, or were I guess. I suppose that is the situation here.

There’s been a lot that has happened in this place. My wife and I have spent most of our relationship in this home. We started out living in the basement of her parent’s home. Then into a small rental house, that we knew wouldn’t be enough for us. Not because it was small, but we needed a yard. We needed it for our little pain in the ass Yorkie terrier, because kids need room to throw a football with their friends (and me on occasion). Because we needed a place to have graduation parties. Because I needed a shed (and I didn’t even know it). Because I needed a place to make beer. Because I was going to start a homebrew club and we’d need a cool place for our Christmas party, and Big Brews.

But mostly we needed a place that was ours. A place that my daughter could paint the walls blue, because it matched her favorite pair of flip flops. And my son would have Bronco stripes on his wall. A place that we could make our own. A place where we could be the one thing that we really needed. A place that we could become a family.

We’ve seen burst pipes, countless leaks in the sprinkler system, and oh yeah that time the hot water heater died two days before our wedding. It was the hub of our kids’ lives going through high school, and where I got to know them best. Where we laughed and fought, and then made fun of each other because we couldn’t say something quite right.

So maybe I can say a thing or two about it. I Love this place. I always will. It will always be special to me. I am thankful that it gave us a place that we became a family, and a place that gave us shelter in tough times. There are bittersweet memories here certainly, but more good than bad, and that’s more than I can ask.

At the end of the day, it’s a bunch of drywall with a bad texture job, some torn up bits of carpet and pee stains on the concrete. But it’s more than that, in part because of those things, but mostly because we’ve worked at it. We’ve put our backs into it. We’ve labored in love to make it our place, this has been a safe harbor for us, our kids, and the pack of wild dogs that we have somehow seemed to gather. It’s become home to us.

The walls will be some one else’s next month, and I hope they treat them half as well as they’ve treated us. I hope the living room knows a quarter as much laughter as it has in our tenure. I hope they labor in love and find the happiness that we have had here. I hope it is as good of a home for them as it has been for us.