This weekend I visited the village that was my marital home for nearly 20 years. Although, I certainly had no interest in actually going into our old farmhouse, pleading with the new owners to re-visit memories they probably wouldn’t give a toss about. But what would it feel like to actually drive past it again?
This weekend I reconnected with old friends and visited the village that was my marital home for nearly 20 years. (You may remember my daughter, Morgan, writing about leaving that home a few years ago – ‘Last night my teenage daughter wrote about leaving her home.’
And I certainly had no interest in actually going into our old farmhouse, pleading with the new owners to re-visit memories they probably wouldn’t give a toss about. I did, however, want to finally pull off that bandaid to see how I would feel when we drove past and I spied that thatched roof and hunter-green window frames.
From what I could see, the old chocolate-box place looked the same… except I didn’t feel the same. I discovered the house and village had been relegated to a time and place which was right for us, me, at the time. Now with grown up, globe-trotting children, rattling around that old homestead for many more years after Bronnie died would have been a mistake. A mistake many friends and family did not hesitate to shine a light on when I was in residence.
The biggest mistake of my staying, however, is that I like my own company. As gregarious and social as I can be, if I don’t have alone-time in my week I start to froth at the mouth. That alone time at the farmhouse, though, was turning into a hermitage. And I’m not saying I left the village for the city 100% willingly, but that other side of me which is excited by change took charge and saved me from self-imposed exile.
I loved that home, but I did have to leave it to rediscover some dormant parts of me. The me that loves to spend hours in museums and art galleries, rummaging through secondhand shops and hopping from place to place – without having to check first the bus actually runs on that particular day! The city speaks to my cultural, spontaneous and sometimes impulsive nature.
It is often said you have to leave home to find it, but sometimes you have to leave home to find you.
Goodbye ‘Seacroft,’ fare thee well.
This is a lovely post Mel. We really do need to constantly rediscover ourselves xx
Thank you, Lara. My first post of 2017 wasn’t showing itself and then I went back to a past home, et voila!
As you say, home changes with our different needs at different times of our lives. People without that flexibility spend their whole lives being homesick for a time rather than a place. I love your healthy and positive outlook. xxx
Thank you. It was a hell of a journey getting here, but at least we eventually get there, eh?
Thank you for writing this, Mel.
Sukh, that has to be the simplest but one of the most moving comments I’ve ever received after writing something. Thank you so much.