A last farewell
Written Dec. 25, 2017, 10:45pm
The land I lived on from age 10 to 18, and returned home to from 18 until now, is finally being sold. My mom and dad divorced almost 18 years ago, my mom and step dad rebuilt the house, but the barn stayed the same. My husband and I got married at this house, took wedding pictures by the barn. Tonight I was lucky enough to have the chance to say goodbye.
Tonight I walked through crunchy snow in the bitter cold of a Wisconsin sub-zero-degree night down the hill to the barn, a walk I have easily done hundreds of thousands of times. When I leave this house tomorrow, it will be for the last time. And as much as I have many fond memories here, I am only a little sad about leaving the house itself. The barn is a different story. Tonight when I walked into the barn by the stalls, it was as if a switch had flipped. I was instantly nostalgic, crying, thinking about the countless hours I'd spent there through the most important phases of my younger life. Country music playing, brushing, feeding, bathing, clipping, braiding on late summer nights before horse shows. Stripping stalls and kicking open fresh bags of wood shavings, dropping flakes of hay through the hay loft trap doors. Sitting on the floor of my horse's stall in a moment of utter teenage angst, knowing my horse was truly my closest confidant. Winter, spring, summer, and fall, twice a day and usually more, my brother Josh and I were there, making sure horses were fed, watered (ice broken in the buckets during the winter), clean, healthy, and free for the day or tucked securely in for the night. Dreams were made, plans forged, music tracks spelling out possible futures, horse noises and the warmth and smell of their bodies the backdrop to all that was possible and beautiful and impossible and sad. Every disappointment flowed through that aisle, every realization released with the opening of the squeaky sliding stall door. The barn was cleaned out when the last horse standing finally passed away this fall. With his death and the house up for sale, an era had ended, even if it was over a long time ago. In two days when the house sale is final, and tomorrow when I drive away, the end will truly be drawn in the dry snow. Another strong wind will blo and cover up that line, and my children may barely remember the days spent here. I will still miss the comfort of knowing this is home. The faint bits of lingering dreams remain in that second stall on the right, as does a piece of my heart.
