I threw a temper tantrum last night. I threw my phone and yelled and stormed out of the house and peeled away in my car. I stayed gone a good while, driving too fast and marinading in my fury.

What precipitated my fit is this pending move. It’s something I’ve wanted so badly for so long, and after feeling like my family was on board, it felt like they’d turned their backs on me. Also, one of my family members is a 14 year old girl, so everything that happens with her is a potential minefield right now. 

I need this move. People on the outside don’t understand it, my burning desire to pass this house on to a family who will feel at home here. They will think me selfish and ungrateful when I complain about the walls that have housed us for the last seven years. Those close to me will chalk it up to my wanderlust, my Gypsy heart. But it’s more than that. This house, this beautiful, perfect house, has never been my home. I’ve been a Georgia ditch flower struggling to thrive in the desert. 

I chose this house trying to please my husband. It was everything he wanted, and nothing about it pleased me, except the size. It was also a screaming, screaming deal, which is why we are in such a good position now. But this house, she’s served her purpose. Our time with her is through.

Simply put, this house isn’t my home. My home has more trees, and weird light fixtures and  room for a couple of chickens and hopefully a little goat or donkey. My home has room for my children to build a tree fort and neighbors that don’t care who the Joneses are. This is only my house. It is time to go.

I’ve wanted to do this since shortly after I moved in. I knew I’d made a mistake. We tried to sell a few years ago when the market was down, and were unsuccessful. The market is back, and prices are good, and I know we can sell now. I’m excited to go to the next place, even though we don’t know where that is now.

Which is why it is hard when my husband and teenager gave me lip and fought me when all I’m trying to do is stage this house the way I know it needs to be so that we can get out of here quickly, and with the most money in my pocket. Which is why I lost my shit, fell into the ugly cry and opened the Pandora’s box of rage I didn’t know I stored inside me. 

Sometimes, I just need my family to trust me and my intuition. I just need them to believe me when I say that although we don’t know what our next house will look like, I know it will be our home, and it will be the last one we have for a very long while. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are about to find something amazing for us. A place to live that showcases all the beautiful wonderful things about this family. A place that embraces us, in all our wonky glory. A place where we can let our dork flags fly.

I feel badly about the yelling, and the stomping, and the ugly I let fly around here last night. I guess sometimes, just like a house, our own selves need to be decluttered, so the junk doesn’t take over. The dust bunnies need to get vacuumed up, and the closet shelves wiped down.

As I say goodbye to this place, as I pack up the detritus of our lives, I hope to leave behind the parts of me that no longer serve. I hope to leave behind the dark corners, and the sadness these last two years have held, so that we can move forward as a new whole. I hope we all can rejoin hands, rejoin the team. Because I know what’s waiting for us. I know that our new family- braver, stronger, and full of joy- will unfold from our moving boxes like a fistful of butterflies, released into a new morning.