This is it. Everything is packed. Everything is put away. Everything's been disconnected. Tomorrow the truck comes, and the Batthaim is no more.
We've been here over five and a half years. It's the longest I've been in a single house since I shared a two bedroom duplex with my Mum and younger brother when I was a teenager, 23 years ago.
My bonus son, Aiden, reached adulthood and embarked on his own life from here. Miss 13 graduated Primary School here. Master 10 was home schooled here. We've had grandchildren, boarded adult family members and childrens' friends, struggled with major illness. I sold my first novel here, and my second and third. Luscious became an educator, and fought tooth and nail to advance her tertiary education. Our kids learned to swim in this house, to ride bikes, to read and write. We've lived here, when all is said and done, really lived, that sort of life you promise yourself when you move to a seaside town from the city.
It's a white elephant of a house. The gardens are too big and the weeds have never been under control. The reticulation is a bitch to operate. There's not a right angle in the fucking place. You can't reach the ceiling in the foyer to clean it. The taps screech and scream and not one of the washers we've fitted over the years has solved it. The patio was designed by a five year old with crayon poisoning, so that the rain pours down onto the seating area instead of away from it. We don't get terrestrial TV, The mortgage is too high and we've struggled to afford it and maintain any sort of standard of living for the kids. I've grown to dislike it terribly. I'll be glad to see the back of it.
And yet, it's been our home. Really our home. It's been a significant part of our lives. No matter where I've been since, the house I lived in with my parents between the ages of 8 and 13, before it all went to shit and they divorced, is the one I think of as my childhood home, the place where my memories really began. This will be that house for my children, I think: when they look back on their childhoods, this will be the place where their memories really begin. And now we're leaving it behind.
It's for a better deal, there's no two ways about it-- the place we're moving to is closer to my work, close to Miss 13's secondary college, closer to all the places we choose to spend our time when we're out and about, deep in the heart of Rockingham-- my old town, my home town. It's more compact, less sprawling and unwieldy. It's more manageable, more affordable, newer, better built. The gardens are smaller. We'll have more money, more time, more leisure. There's no down side to this move.
But still, this is our home. The Batthaim. And now we're leaving it.
We're going to need a new name.
No comments:
Post a Comment