Saying goodbye to our second house.

New Year’s Eve 2011. D-Day. Come and gone, and we survived.

The holidays are really not the best time of year to move, but we have done it twice.  This past New Year’s, we packed, cleaned and moved for 12 hours. Finished up at 9pm, showered and made it to a party to ring in 2012 with two hours to spare. Now that is efficiency.

It was strange seeing the house empty again. Reminded us of the moment when we first walked through the front door and fell in love with it. We hope the next people will love it just as much! Our plan was to take it all in and enjoy a bottle of wine on the bare hardwood floors in the living room, but alas there was no time. So we let our eyes wander over the naked space for a brief moment and then we closed the door.

As we leave behind our second house together, and our last in Canada for a while, we remind ourselves that it is a house we leave behind, and not a home. Our “home” will travel with us to New Zealand. It will find its way into a new house and decorate it and fill the nooks and crannies with warmth. It will line the walls with photos of great moments and people, and it will collect dust behind bookshelves. Home will become the smile and hug that greets us each time we enter the front door of wherever we end up. It will become the familiar and safe. It will be knowing that we have each other.

Home is where the heart is.

But…it will also remain here.

Can home still be where one is not? If home is in the familiar and the safety of comforts, then home will always be found in the warmth of family and friends, for they occupy a place in our hearts. And even though the walls might change and family and friends may move their own house from one to the next, we will always find safety and comfort in their embrace, no matter where in the world that may be.

And so we temporarily make home in the spare room of a best friend’s house until we leave Canada on January 27. Bringing with us a trail of belongings to fill their space as they unsuspectingly lie on a beach in the Dominican Republic (heh heh). We find comfort and warmth, and then we look ahead to the next place.

Toasting a glass to our temporary home for the month of January, and to new adventures!

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