New Year, New Life, New Sounds
Some people make resolutions for the new year, but I’ve never been good at making promises to myself. This year our family has made some goals to move on with our lives.
Our biggest goal is to sell our home and buy a larger one. In some ways I am sad to move because this was our first house and we’ve created a lot of memories in this small brick space.
It was in our small outdated kitchen that I told Nate we were having a baby. It was in our living room that Ethan took his first steps and in our backyard that we’ve celebrated many of his birthdays. It was from this front porch that we’ve watched many storms roll in and out. It was this front yard that held a welcome home sign from the neighbors when I came home from the hospital. It was this sliding glass door that my mother came through to tell me we’d lost my grandmother and cousin. It was in this home where my husband and I learned exactly what love and sacrifice entail.
But as much as I love this house, it doesn’t love me back in the same way. Our laundry is in the basement and I don’t do stairs very well with an ankle that doesn’t bend quite as it should. I’ve fallen a few times, once resulting in an ER visit and subsequently a surgery on my elbow a year ago.
My biggest reason for wanting to move is a noise. (No, it’s not the old lady next door who runs her leaf blower every single time we have people over to grill out.)
We live about 2 blocks from one of the hospitals I frequent. Each day you can hear a helicopter coming in and out, hovering above our home. Maybe I’m more sensitive to the sound, but it brings feelings and emotions to a boil on certain days. All from the sound of the blades.
There were very few things that I remembered from the car accident, and the vivid memories I did have seem to intensify times ten. One distinct memory I recall is listening to the helicopter land in the field near me at the scene. I knew it was for me.
While my life hung in the unknown, my body was stuck in a vehicle. My mind traveled while I listened intently, wondering if what I was hearing would be the last sound. Turns out the last sound I remembered was of the helicopter taking off and ironically I hear that same noise every single day.
Every time I hear that same sound from the comfort of my safe home, it brings up a world of emotions that even three years later I am not fully equipped to handle.
It is just a daily reminder of where I once was, trapped in a car waiting to be airlifted to a place where my life would be examined by medical professionals, who probably never stopped to listen to the sound of a helicopter’s blades cutting through the air.
It’s definitely sad to leave a home permanently, but looking for your new home, the place where you will make so many new memories, will be just wonderful. Good luck with this!
(Incidentally, the police chopper in our town seems to be about to land on our roof at times throughout the summer, so I can only imagine what it must be like for you.)
It sounds like a wonderful goal and incredibly valid reasons for having it. I hope it works out for you.
Let me know when - I’ll be there with a truck to help move you to a new home where years of wonderful new memories will be made.
I can totally understand both your wanting to move and your apprehension at leaving the home where there are also so many good memories. Good luck finding something that makes you all happy!
You have such a way to put things into words. It’s hard to leave a home where you’ve made so many memories; good and bad, but it will also be so incredible to start fresh in a new home where you don’t have those memories, any longer. Not that you will forget them completely, but like the helicopter and, your basement steps with your ankle hurting…… you won’t have a constant reminder of your accident every.single.day.
It’s the little things. The good happy memories that have happened in that house, you can take with you and cherish forever. It’s the negative ones that you’ll be glad to leave behind and start fresh in a new home.
Best wishes to you and your family. May 2008 be wonderful to you!
I truly believe that a home should be a place to rest, restore and make your own. Good luck in your search… you’ll know it when you find it.
This is really so beautiful. I hope you won’t be offended if I say I need to go chew on it awhile, it made me unexpectedly sad.
I want to move to, but not for as noble reasons as you. My house is just too small.
Lovely post.
it’s salty sweet, isn’t it - to say goodbye to so much but yet be so ready to let it go.
kit’s really sad to leave a home, especially when kids are involved. i’m moving to a new home at the end of February. i used to hate this house with a passion. it’s small. it’s outdated. the floor squeaks and creaks. the bathrooms are tiny. it’s DIRECTLY under a flightpath to the local airport, which means we have all types of aircraft flying over all day long…and we’re close enough to the airport that they fly pretty low, which freaks me out. blah blah blah. but that started to change in 2005 when i had my first son. now i have two little boys, and so many memories. i’m still not crazy about the house, but i’ve grown fond of it, and it will always hold a place in my heart because of my two boys. there were so many firsts in this house…but i have to keep reminding myself that there will be many more firsts in our new home.
Oh Honey! Darn these pregnant hormones. I’m cryin’ for ya stuck there in your car!
We can’t sell our too-huge house here in Nashville. Move on out, you can have it. Better you than the bank. Hee, hee…
Laundry is upstairs with the bedrooms.
Flippin’ genius I tell ya!
Love ya, Babe!
I really can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.
Good luck with your quest to move - it was be sad to leave but great to have a fresh start and build new memories.
Happy New Year, by the way!
hearing helicopters always jerks me back to my own airlift, to that sense of panic and powerlessness. i get it, the need to get away from that.
good luck with your move, with leaving the negative memories and triggers behind and taking the poignant ones with you. and happy 2008. may it bring joy.
yes, you have memories, however, the new ones will be embedded as well. You’ve journeyed so much in the last three years. Your choices will be more personal to your family needs. You’ll be glad you have a history…one house down and another to make new, and better memories. I wish you success with your home purchase.
So glad to know you…
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
Oh wow… if there was a sound near my home that brought up such a difficult memory (as was/is your car accident) I wouldn’t want to live in the proximity of ANY helicopters! Hoping 2008 brings you a wonderful new home…
I totally get this.
I was thrilled to move from our condo for many reasons. None so traumatic as yours, but similar in the sense that certain things were a daily reminder of stuff I didn’t want to remember.
We moved to a house that needed a lot of work (from a condo that was all new), but the other day we were in our car and my husband and I were talking about the house. We both agreed that it’s a lot of work, but that we’ve never been happier living somewhere.
It’s sad to leave but it’ll be THRILLING to find a new place and make wonderful NEW memories. You’ll be fine. Trust.
We moved only a block from our first home and I always thought I’d feel sad having to pass the old house day after day but it was really just fine. A sense of relief and quiet happiness as we passed by a good house that served us well on the way to a better house.
Sound, like smell, can be a powerful reminder of things both good and bad. I hope your new house has vibrations of laughter and children playing and the bumble of bees in the breeze. May you forever be free of helicopter nightmares.