I hope they enjoy my house; I hope they love it as much as I did.

The small blue house on a steep hill of a bumpy road that I once claimed as my own is no longer mine.

The only place I knew as home now belongs to strangers—people I’ve never met. A new person lives in the room I once called my own, and I can’t seem to wrap my head around that thought. I hope they love it as much as I did.

Moving felt like one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I felt safe and at peace in that house, and in twenty minutes, I walked out the door for the last time as tears swelled in my eyes. I grew up, and I grew out of that house in thirteen years, and I know it was time to move on, but I wasn’t ready.

Every moment I spent in that house is one I will forever treasure. The seafoam-colored room I lived in my entire life. The sunlight that flooded my room on a sunny summer morning that started my day off right. The small, cramped closet that I kept all my important belongings in. None of it will ever be forgotten. 

Life got harder, days got longer, and I felt incomplete after I moved. The only house I’d known felt forever out of reach, and it belonged to a new family. There seemed to be more downs than ups in life for the first few months in this new house. Life felt different—it felt altered and not right.

That new family deserves such a loved house. I know somewhere deep down that it will always be my house even though it’s not rightfully mine anymore. It gives me a sense of comfort to think it’s still mine.

As I pulled away from that house for the last time, I reflected on all the good and bad connected to that house, and I remembered how lucky I was to grow up in such a memorable place. My childhood has always and will forever belong to that house. 

I’ve realized now that I can live without that house. Though it’s hard and it has taken almost nine months to do, I know I will be okay without it. 

There isn’t any other house I would’ve wanted to grow up in. 

My heart will forever belong to the small blue house on the steep hill, and it will always be my home.