If these walls could talk...

This morning as I scanned my inbox full of emails, with the full intention of ignoring most of them until I had more time, one from my husband caught my eye. I had to smile when I read the contents, wishing me a happy 10 year anniversary of home ownership. Andy is great with dates, and I’m a sentimental sap at heart, and so today a new tradition is born: Houseversary celebrations. When I picked up the kids from school they rushed up to the house (armed with the knowledge of this special day) screaming “Happy Birthday House!” “We love you house” and continuing the declarations and memory sharing through the dinner hour. My five-year-old daughter Alana is journaling about her favorite thing about our house, my two-year old son Connor, is wearing an indian headdress of construction paper and he and my husband are setting up train tracks on the family room floor. Soon there will be baths, pjs and bedtime stories, for them. While Andy lays with Connor, I’ll slip out to our fave Chinese place to pick up dinner so we can sit on our floor, eat out of cartons, and play video games in homage of our earliest days in this house. Then perhaps, we’ll make our first fire of the season and Andy will ask me if I’ve decided yet on my favorite memory in this house (I know this because he prepped me with the question this morning).
If these walls could talk they’d have a lot to say. It’s amazing how much history a place can hold in a decade. I still remember the first time we stepped foot in this house, the look on Andy’s face as he held both my hands and very convincingly described how he imagined our life playing out in this house. “This is the one!” he had said, and despite having my heart set on a powder blue colonial we had seen a few weeks earlier, I couldn’t help but cave-in to the look on his face, the conviction in his eyes. I have no regrets about that. Ten years later, this house is just a shadow of what it was back then, and that moment when we decided to start our life here feels like it could have been yesterday. I remember walking through this house trying to imagine what my life here would be like, picturing moments that I could hardly grasp or understand at the time.
Back then, I imagined cooking elaborate meals in my kitchen, but never could have grasped the countless hours we’d spend laughing, trying, failing, succeeding, balancing enormous thanksgiving turkeys, icing countless birthday cakes for friends and loved ones, ritual Saturday morning pancakes, and dancing. Lots and lots of dancing! We dreamed about our children running these halls, but never could have really grasped how they would make this house come to life each morning with their giggling and stomping, racing and chasing. We dreamed of filling this house with our loved ones, but never could have imagined the joy of hosting holidays, birthdays, weekends & spur-of-the-moment- drop-ins! We’ve had long-term houseguests, and unexpected visitors, we’ve experienced the joy of new-life and the devastation of lost life, we’ve laughed and played and dreamed and worked and tickeled and talked, and wondered and learned within these walls.
On this day, a decade ago we made this our house, but somewhere along the way, we filled it with life, wonderful times of dancing and laughing, hard times of grieving and slamming doors, and that life made this house a home, and there’s no place a Halliday would rather be than home. Happy Houseversary 651