Fragility

I'm fragile.  I admit it.  I need to be handled with care.

We moved a month ago, from a house in Kentucky to a new condo in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  I have been excited about the move.  I like the new condo and enjoy being near good friends.  After a month in the new condo, we have returned to our house, preparing it for sale.  Walking into the house where we have lived for ten years… it was strange.

People have been viewing our house.  Real estate agents have been showing them through our house.  But it's still our house.  It's so familiar to me.  Many of our things are still in it.  Suddenly I saw it as a stranger might see it, with my things still in the kitchen and the closets.  I wanted to reclaim it.  It still belongs to me.  I could continue to live here, along with my things and my memories.

That part of our life is over.  My brain accepts this fact but my heart hasn't quite caught up.  Part of me still belongs here, the part of me that knows this place as it was.  We hosted family gatherings here, celebrated holidays here, and the memories remain.  How could someone else take it over?  How could I not belong here?

Does everyone who moves out of a house feel this way?  Why do I become so attached?  I remember when we moved here ten years ago, I was missing the other house that we had just left.  I cried when we went back and saw other people living in it.  Now I am crying over this house.  What's wrong with me?