A Price Tag On Memories

I'm on trial today. Or should I say, my house is on trial. The appraiser is coming this afternoon to put a price on it. It is rather sad to think everything here can be condensed into a monetary value, that a stranger will judge if it's big enough, good enough, and fancy enough to make the cut.

I suppose I'm being a hypocrite. Up till now I didn't care what people thought of my house. If I wanted to paint the kitchen purple, I painted it purple. If I wanted to drive nails in the wall to hang some flea market treasure, I nailed with abandon. If I had the impulse to move the sofa on an angle, I experimented without concerns.
But now, my eye is critical and I find myself wishing I had been more conservative. I wish I had taken the time to touch up nicks in the trim, spots on the concrete and changed those tulip shaped globes on the ceiling fan. I find myself hoping they won't notice my craft supplies huddled in the corner, the Halloween mice still hanging in the garage, and the broken sundial by the garden. But then I realize I am hoping they will not see "me"...because these little things are who I am, what I have become...how I live.

If it wasn't for the fact that we have plans to "re-root", I would be content for this house to stay just like it is. In its crazy eclectic style, it's overly-comfy laziness, it's well worn surfaces and familiar smells...

How can you put a price on days of laughter, nights of music and firelight, the joy of new babies and the celebration of fresh beginnings? How can you ignore the memories of special holidays here...a lopsided Christmas tree...a gruesome scarecrow...pumpkin carving...Easter egg hunts...fishing...
sunning...and star gazing? Who can access the value of a well- lived life in a much-loved house?

I have promised myself not to cry when it's time to leave. After all, it's just a house. Just block and lumber and plaster and shingles. What do I care about such things? I guess it's because I know this was not just my house, it was my home. My nest. My comfort. My haven. My base.

The entire process is made easier knowing that I can fluff and fix and fabricate a new home. That I can take these beautiful, over- flowing and amazing memories with me wherever I go. That change is sometimes the best thing one can do...that someone else is waiting to make their own memories beneath this roof and in this yard...

I keep saying this is a new chapter in our lives. But is the book going to have a happy ending? Will it be worth reading, keeping, nurturing? My heart says so. And my heart is usually right.

And so I wait...thinking I might ought to hide my hideous mannequin.

But I won't. I can't. It's part of who I am.