After two appointments with two separate moving companies and a meeting with potential realtors, I am feeling quite sad.
Sad that the items in my house (after meeting with the moving companies) are basically relegated to "line items" on a spreadsheet.
Sad that my home, and the precious belongings inside of it (after meeting with the realtors) are looked at as "in the way" as we are being advised to get rid of everything as soon as possible, repaint our bedrooms (that the kids spent so much time on picking out their favorite colors), remove the various stickers from the windows and etc.
I know that I'm tired, so maybe I'm a bit over-emotional, but it was sad to hear them suggest that we spend a good bit of time covering up the scratch marks on the hard wood floors. Those scratch marks contain some fun moments of the kids bringing their ride-on toys INDOORS because it was too cold outside, and many moments of chasing each other around the house with Donut trailing behind, putting those very scratch marks in the wood that they want us to do away with.
It was hard to swallow them advising that we cover up the 'sunshine yellow' in the basement with a 'nice neutral khaki' so that the buyer can see potential. That tinted pigment and the space we created provided some great creative playtime, hosted many a play-date with our friends and has been the backdrop for loads of sleepovers.
It was even hard to see Todd talk about his shed and our built-ins in the garage with such pride ... only to be seemingly shrug them off as "great features" but that they could be taken or left depending on what the buyer wants.
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I understand that a prospective buyer wants to see a sparklin' house with clean floors, all polished up like so ... and carpets without stains from the last bout of illness in our house ... and walls that do not bear any marks from our family memories, photos and favorite art pieces.
I get that I'm going to need to rid the kitchen of the splatters on the walls from my homemade spaghetti sauce and wipe off the handprints from the glass.
I also understand they are doing their job. That their job ... quite honestly ... is to present a shell of a house, with its best foot put forward, to a new family with dreams, memories and hopes of their own.
But in this heart of mine, it is a bit disconcerting and quite a bit unnerving to have complete strangers - - in the course of one day - - three times over, look at the last four years of our lives as a family ... and view it as simply "stuff."
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Tomorrow is a PLAY DAY for us ... I am putting away the notebooks and the binders and the to-do list will get buried underneath a pile of magazines that I've not made time to read.
We are going to just spend the day playing. First with friends from my running club, and then with neighbors in the middle of the day, and rounding it out with the amazing girls from my playgroup.
I have not made time to play much through this process, and tomorrow is the day.
There is enough time NEXT week to start getting rid of the "stuff"
