Serenading a House

Oh, friends.  It started as a weekend of deep cleaning to get our house ready to go on the market, and it's ended with a napless baby, a clingy, back-talking Lauren, a distracted mama, and a focused daddy.  Mia is the only one of us who is running strong on all burners, and I'm super-double glad for that much.  She's excited and helpful and talkative and funny.

I'm exhausted and anxious and hiding my emotions by yelling too much.

But the house!  It looks GORGEOUS in here, you guys.  I looked around yesterday at our spotless living space, and declared this the perfect place to live.  I would totally buy this house.  If we hadn't already decided to sell it, that is.  But it's perfect.  There's not a speck, not a fluff, not a trail of dust in the whole place.  No clutter, either; we've cleared out about half of our belongings to make it seem open and airy and available. 

And we had plenty of help, too.  Our mothers washed windows and screens, scrubbed blinds and shades, dusted fan blades and shelves.  My aunt came over, tools in hand, unbidden, and began raking out our overgrown flower beds.  They are now pristine. 

I say again, I want to live here.  I do.  I don't want to goooo.  Only, we've made an offer on another, larger house, which the owners have accepted.  So our time is short.  Sob.

Last night, falling asleep in a clutter-free bedroom, in a dust-free house, on a manicured plot of land, I dreamed  I was auditioning for a musical show.  I climbed up on the stage, which actually turned out to be our roof, and belted my song for the judges.  My voice was pure and passionate.  I became the song, as sometimes happens in dreams -- my soul swelled with the notes. 

So cheesy, yes, and so revealing.  I sang to the house: And I.....will always love you...my darling you...  I was better than Whitney.  I was truer than Dolly.  I was the song and the song was me and the house, oh, the house, she sighed and pulsed with my singing.

I got the part in the musical, of course.  I was talented beyond measure.  But when it was time for the performance, with my name spelled in lights at the box office, I couldn't remember the words.  They faded as I moved further away from the house. 

And now you are free to question my mental stability, as you've probably already done many times by now.  I won't judge you.  I'll just please ask you to pass me a tissue while I gaze longingly at my clean, lonely home while we prepare drive away someday soon.