Falling Out Of Love

When we found you, our current home and saw you for the first time, it was love at first sight. We'd seen close to 75 homes before we found you. You were there, a bit homely, nestled in the woods on a hillside. You'd just had some cosmetic work done inside and looked shiny and bright.

We have loved you well these past 15+ years. We have cared for you well, treated you well, and done for you whatever we could within our means. We added your beautiful sunroom. We landscaped and terraced with rocks we carried ourselves from all over your property. We dressed you in irises and hydrangeas and Four O'Clocks and Marigolds and Prickly Pear and Azaleas and Hostas and flowers that sometimes struggle to grow.

We are sorry we couldn't give you a brand new driveway or have a professional mason replace your stairway and stone walls. We're sorry we couldn't pay for 10 inches of new top soil to plant you a lush luxurious lawn. We couldn't add that extra bathroom or make a beautiful master suite. We used all kinds of found and recycled things to dress you up - no store-bought clothes: scavenged flagstone, an old slate table for the patio that someone was throwing out, lawn chairs and a fence that were going to the dump.

Your trees are a bit scraggly and should be thinned and trimmed. Your veggie garden could be raised. Your basement could have been turned into living space. We did our very best within our means though we couldn't fulfill your potential and our earlier dreams.

We've have had many happy times, and family and friends who came and ate and drank and laughed. We had our wedding in your sunroom and Thanksgiving meals there too. We have shared many meals, we've partied, we've enjoyed your tranquility and sunshine and your shade on the hottest summer days. We've enjoyed your glorious Mountain Laurel blossoms in the spring. We have enjoyed walking in your woods and beyond into the trails on Fall Mountain.

But your grooming and beauty treatments require now too much of our time and energy. We are weary. We watch your lawn dry up in this season's drought, we are on our knees too often picking out weeds because we refuse to poison you with chemicals.

We've mowed you and manicured you each summer; we've cleaned up too many leaves over fifteen autumns; and god knows we've cleared way too much snow during seemingly endless winters.

You are still a very pretty house, always open and cozy and welcoming and filled with light, but we, we are weary.

We think it is time for you to have new companions, new caretakers, a new dream for what you might become. We love you still, but perhaps we're no longer in love. We need to tell you we'll be moving on soon.

Wish us luck and godspeed.