I always knew it would happen.
With four kids, one is bound to eventually pick up and move away from my cozy little Carmichael lair.
When our oldest left, we ranted and raved, and now, three years later, she lives only six city (Carmichael) blocks away. She works up the street at Eskaton Village, and attends school at University of Phoenix where I taught for years. The second daughter moved a little farther away (Elk Grove Area), but is still only a phone call or facebook chat away—and she is a proud graduate of Paul Mitchell Academy, so you know who gets the best hair care if town (me).
That leaves the other two. My only son is still here, and I’m considering building on so he will stay! However, my baby, my youngest wild child, Jessica, has officially flown the coop. What makes this so hard is that, unlike her two older sisters, she has decided to follow her life-long dream of acting. I knew it would happen and I knew it would be her; the first to leave home and move to Southern California. Jessica will be attending Santa Monica Jr. College part time, working as many hours as she can get, and trying out for every audition she can find.
I am told that “she’s only a six-hour drive away,” or hey, “she’s an hour away on Southwest,”
yet that doesn’t seem to make me feel better. I walk in her room and my heart sinks. Something about leaving home is so permanent, even though she’s left make-up and cough drops on her dresser, I know that she’s left the nest for good. And then I turn to my trusty real estate career. I realize, that home is where the heart is.
You can sell an investor a house, but you can never sell anyone a home. A home is something that one must experience, first-hand. There are so many things that make a house a home. For instance, maybe where a child took her first step, opened her first Christmas present, or sat on the front porch crying because the cutest guy in seventh grade stood her up for home-coming. All of these memories, these experiences, take a particular geography and transmute it into a story. Something that stays in your heart much longer than the physical structure of a house.
I am guilty of becoming involved in my clients’ stories. There are divorces, deaths, illnesses, foreclosures, births, marriages and more. These are homes I am helping my clients sell—a place where so many memories took place. And for my buyers, a place where so many memories are yet to unfold. The future is bright with promise as I hand them their new set of keys.
In the end, a house is just a structure, an investment, a place we sleep and eat and watch T.V., throw birthday parties, cocktail parties, complain about work, learn important life lessons, love, hate, hug and cry. But ultimately, it becomes a part of who we are. Our history. And no matter how far we go, we are always there.
Home is where the heart is.
Missing you Jessica,
Love Mom
