Today is our last full day in Seattle, we leave tomorrow evening. I was sitting in the living room of my parent's home, thinking about never coming back to this house again. That is not to say that I don't want to ever come home again, my visit has been wonderful, and I am sad to leave. My parents bought a house in Hawaii and will be selling this house. We may or may not have the funds to come here and go to Hawaii next year, which is what we are planning on doing. So I may never see the house again before they sell it. This house holds a lot of memories, and while I will keep them always, it is sad to know I won't be making anymore.

My parents bought the land out here when I was almost 12, the spring after my grandmother died if I remember correctly. That first summer we would come out and camp out on "the property" as we kids called it. The grass in the field was very high, up to our chests or even shoulders. My brothers and I, and sometimes our friends, played hide and go seek, in the dark in the high grass. We chased each other through the woods and to the river. We'd hike up to the Falls, or float down the river the couple miles in to town. We moved out here when I was 13, the five of us into a small two bedroom trailer we bought from a pillow factory: it was full of feathers when we first got it. My parents had a bed out in the living room. We lived there for 18 months while we watched our house slowly go up and be finished. We adjusted to life in a much more rural area than where we had lived up to that point. I read Jurassic Park while we lived in that trailer and I had nightmares about being chased by raptors through the framed, but unfinished interior of the house. I'd often come home from school and take several hours long walks along the river, enjoying the solitude and peace to tend to the thoughts of a young teenager.

Years later I sat in this very living room, the morning of my wedding, which took place in the backyard, looking out the window at the gathering crowd in my backyard. Feeling the quiet moments before a great day in my life. Sitting with my parents and my husband.

In the weeks after Leila's first Christmas, that was here, we moved our small family back in with my parents. Leila took her first steps in this living room, right across the floor here. Elyas was born in this room. Elyas won't remember this house, he probably won't remember the river, though Leila may remember our nearly daily treks to the river to throw in rocks.

I will miss the place, and the chance to make more memories. There will be new memories, of course, but I feel a pang of loss all the same.


Quote of the day: I told Leila to go upstairs because her dad was drawing her a bath. Leila said, "but people don't get baths by drawing them! You are trying to joke me!"