Dear House

A love letter to the house I never saw coming

No I didn’t watercolor this myself.

Dear House,

It’s hard to believe that, as of this weekend, we’ve known each other for four years. I’ll be honest, it was not love at first sight.

Your carpeted bathrooms revolted me¹. The overwhelming scent of dog lingered in every fiber of your being. You had wires hanging from your ceilings. Your galley kitchen with its oak cabinets and terracotta tile dated you.

Walking through your halls for the first time, I ached for my former home. The one I had spent years lovingly making my own. The one that was, at that very moment, staged for an open house. The one a new owner would buy and make their own. I balked when I compared all of its customizations to your blank canvas.

Of course, House, I was thankful for your existence. In late-April, when Luke accepted a new job in Dallas mere weeks after saying goodbye to our foster son in Houston, we learned we would need to relocate to the DFW area by the end of May. You’ll recall this was 2021 when the housing market was insane. You’ll recall how Luke’s dad had purchased you the prior December and was just about ready to find a renter for you. You’ll recall how Luke called and told him to call off the search before it even began—we would be those renters. Temporarily.

We just needed a place to land while we figured out next steps. That’s all I thought you’d ever be, House; a stop along the way to something bigger and better.

The night we moved in, friends and family gathered in your kitchen to help us get settled. I appreciated the help, as my five-month-pregnant ankles swelled in the early Texas summer, but I insisted most of the boxes remain packed. No sense in getting too comfortable when we’d soon be heading out.

For months, even years, after moving in, your spare bedrooms sat filled with stacks of boxes—odds and ends we didn’t immediately need and wouldn’t until we found our real home.

As the summer wore on, we scoured the real estate listings with a fine toothed comb. We called our agent any time a house of interest went on the market and scheduled a showing as soon as possible. Houses were selling right as they were listed, it seemed, and for well over asking price.

Month after month, despite making competitive offers, we were consistently outbid. We were discouraged, but persistent.

All the while, House, my due date approached fast and faster until the urge to nest became irresistible. We told our realtor we were simply pressing pause on the house hunt, not calling it quits.

I cried as I sampled every shade of light pink paint imaginable in your nursery, lamenting what a shame it was that the house we would bring our daughter home to would be just a blip on the radar. It wouldn’t be our house, just the place we happened to be living whenever she was born.

After combining who knows how many paint samples, I was eventually satisfied with my own custom creation. I watched appreciatively as Luke and his dad ran the rollers up and down over your walls, erasing any trace of the deep grey that covered them before. I had to admit, I liked what I saw.

I spent the rest of the summer curating the perfect “secret garden” inspired nursery and with each new addition, I secretly fell a little more in love with the space. The cream colored curtains that hung just so. The dresser my mom and I found at an antique shop with the subtle, delicate bow on the cabinet door. The rug my mother-in-law gifted me, whose colors inspired my paint choice. The framed photos I had purchased back when I thought her nursery would be in a different room, in a different house.

You remember, House, that September day when we carried our newborn through your garage door. How we set her baby carrier in the living room chair so Louie could sniff and greet his new human sister. How he was so gentle and sweet as his tail wagged in excitement. You remember how my parents stuck the giant stork in our front yard and we posed for photos, holding our tiny bundle of joy, proclaiming to the world we were a family of three.

You saw us the day after we posed happily, albeit deliriously, in your front yard. When I had to go back to the hospital for the relentless spinal headache no one realized I had from my epidural. You saw us in the wee hours of the morning and the late hours of the night when that same tiny bundle of joy wouldn’t stop crying. You saw us after her oral tie revisions, how I had to stretch her little mouth before each feeding. You saw us when my grandmother died just three weeks after I gave birth and then my beloved cat, Pete, passed just few weeks later. You saw how I juggled these losses, paired with the losses earlier in the year, with learning to be a new mom. You saw it all.

House, of course you bore witness over the coming months as that screaming newborn baby grew into the happiest baby. You heard her cries turn to laughter; her laughter turn to babbles and words. Her first crawl, first steps, first bites of food—each first took place within your four walls.

And with each new first, I not only settled into motherhood, but I settled into you, as well. We baby-proofed your cabinets and doors. We unpacked boxes to make space for a playroom. We built a cabinet to hang under the tv. We poured concrete in your backyard and picked out furniture to outfit a patio. We bought tables and chairs and credenzas to fit your confines. We assembled a swing set in your backyard and watched our toddler run through your grass as the water hose sprayed. We hosted parties and invited others through your door.

We walked the streets of your neighborhood and discovered nearby trails dotted with wildflowers and longhorns. We found a park with baseball fields and volleyball courts just at the edge of our block. We trick-or-treated and watched neighbors come out in droves, children filling the streets.

We went to the library in your town and met other new moms and set up play dates with our children. We watched fireworks and homecoming parades at the high school stadium. We tried coffeeshops and restaurants and grocery stores that over time became our own.

Eventually, House, without quite realizing it, we let those real estate listing emails go unread for so long, our realtor stopped sending them. Eventually, House, we realized you really weren’t so bad. Eventually, House, we fell in love with your charm and decided if we were going to leave, we’d have to love the next house more than we loved you. And here we are four years later, still waiting.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve lived here with you longer than I’ve lived anywhere since graduating high school over fifteen years ago. Never could I have imagined that first day we met that you’d be my longest tenured real estate relationship.

I don’t know how much longer we’ll live here, House. Maybe a few more years, maybe forever. Just the other day, out of the blue in the car, my three-year-old pleaded with me for us to never move, even if you get really old. She knows nothing of our complicated relationship. She has always looked at you with nothing but love.

On a different day, during a different car ride, I drove her past the house where I grew up. Not the house my parents live in now, the one they built when I was seven, but the one where I lived until first grade.

Although we only lived there for a short time, that house will always be the one where I grew up. The house that built me. It is that house whose trees I named and whose neighborhood children I still love. It is that house where my dad fashioned me a stethoscope out of a plastic coat hanger and masking tape. It is that house where he woke me up in the dark one Christmas morning before his shift at the fire station so we could watch White Christmas together. It is that house where the magic of my childhood resides.

As we drove away from that house, she asked if we could drive past the house where she grew up. I told her the house she lives in now is the house where she is growing up. Tears filled my eyes as I realized you weren’t just the place we happened to be living when she was born, but you are the house that is building her. And that, House, is more than I could have ever dreamed. I’m sorry for ever doubting your significance. You have become our home.

XOXO,

Kelsey

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Become."

1. Fear not, this flooring faux pas was remedied immediately. And with the removal of the carpet, the dog scent was removed, too. Won’t He do it.