My First Love
XXXX Brushwood St. is more than just a house with dry walls.
For the last two and a half years, these walls have held pieces of my life that I didn’t realize I would one day have to let go of. Every space, every room, every corner has a story. If these walls could talk, they would know more about our life than anyone else.
People who walked through these doors added their own happiness to this home. Every piece of décor has a little bit of me in it. I took what was once a normal-looking house and slowly turned it into something personal. I didn’t just decorate it. I made it ours. I gave this house a life.
Maybe that’s why saying goodbye feels so much harder than I expected.
Today, moving even one piece of furniture feels like I’m taking away a piece of a life I built. Removing a decoration from a wall feels strangely heartbreaking. Emptying a corner that once had a purpose makes the whole room feel different.
My mind knows that it is time to move on.
My heart hasn’t agreed yet.
And I don’t know which one is going to win.
This house has seen our family in so many versions of ourselves.
Adults have made memories here. Children have grown, played, laughed, fought, and made up here. Friends have walked in as guests and slowly made themselves at home. This house gave happiness not only to us, but to everyone who became a part of our lives.
For my daughter, this house was childhood.
She had so much life in and around these walls. The friendly neighborhood, the children playing outside, the endless opportunities to run out and find a friend—it all gave her the kind of childhood me and my husband had hoped she would have.
We planned simple indoor furniture that would not be an obstacle for toddlers running around the house while playing. Who would want to see a toddler bang into a table while chasing, with their eyes on the back of their heads?
The kitchen has been everyone’s favorite. It is a mini-Airbnb kitchen, with labeled bottles so anyone can find any spice they need for their recipe. I may have taken the labeling a little too seriously. At some point, I subconsciously started checking the label before opening the bottles.
All of my friends who visited have cooked in this kitchen comfortably and happily, just like it was their own. Somehow, my kitchen became everyone’s kitchen.
The kitchen countertop and the dining area have been the best spots for all our get-togethers. I can still hear the laughter and conversations. I can remember the arguments, the pranks, and all the fun we had.
And then there were the kids running around the kitchen, making everything a little more chaotic and a lot more fun. Helping me peel eggs, preparing breakfast, making popsicles—nothing was ever just a simple kitchen task when the kids were involved.
Looking back, I think the kitchen was never really about the kitchen.
It was about everyone feeling comfortable enough to walk in, open a labeled bottle, grab what they needed, cook, eat, laugh, argue, and make themselves at home.
And honestly, that is probably the best compliment a kitchen can get.
Then there is the media room.
The same group of people would cook, eat, and wrap up in the kitchen, then grab some popcorn, ice cream, and tissues and head upstairs for late-night movies in full-on theater mode.
We painted that room and a few other walls in the initial days after moving in. My husband and I decided to experiment with painting. When it was one or two walls, it didn’t feel like a big deal. Thinking it would be easy, we started on the media room walls.
Those four walls took like forever to paint!
Groaning, stretching our hands, and saying, “Someone, please take over. I’m tired!” were pretty much all that was happening among the four of us—my husband, me, and two of our friends.
Yes, the two of us couldn’t handle it alone. Taping the covers to the floor, painting, rolling, removing the tapes, cleaning… too much work! Phew!
Finally, after five hours, Tada!
Four walls. Five hours. Four exhausted people. We were done.
And then came the best part, several weeks after the setup—actually getting to use the room we had worked so hard on.
If the movie was good, it was an appreciated evening. If it was bad, well… the person who selected the movie was poked about it for the whole next day.
So, movie selection in our house was serious business. Choose wisely!
One of my favorite customizations was adding a bench wall near the flowerbed so that family and friends could sit there and spend time together. Honestly, I always thought our parents would have enjoyed it the most.
It is such an old-school concept, something I remember from the villages where I grew up. Almost every household had a place like that—a bench outside where people would sit, talk, watch what was happening around them, and of course, do a little gossip.
The old-fashioned gossip bench!
I wanted to bring a little bit of that feeling into our home.
A place where people could just sit without any agenda, enjoy the flowers, watch the kids play, and talk for hours.
I always imagined my parents sitting there. That is probably why this little bench means more to me than it looks like it should.
It is just a bench.
But in my mind, it was always meant to hold family, conversations, laughter, and a little bit of village life.
Now I understand that ordinary moments are sometimes the ones we miss the most.
But there is one thing about leaving this house that hurts in a way I cannot easily explain.
I never brought my parents here.
This was my first home. My first investment. The first place I could look around and say, I built this part of my life.
And as their daughter, I wanted them to see it.
I wanted to walk my parents through every room. I wanted to show them what I had done. I wanted to see my dad look at the things I planted. I wanted to hear my mom’s thoughts about the little details. I wanted to sit with them here, not as a child visiting her parents, but as their daughter showing them something she had created.
I didn’t get that moment.
And that is the one void in this house that no amount of decorating could ever fill.
I had always imagined a space for our parents and in laws here. A place where they could come, stay, relax, and feel that this home belonged to them too.
Neither my parents nor my in-laws ever got to step into those spaces.
I still carry those thoughts with me.
I always dreamed of gardening with my dad here.
I imagined him helping me, telling me what to plant, where to plant it, probably correcting me when I did something wrong. I imagined my mom being part of it too. I would send them pictures whenever I did something new, proudly showing them what I had planted or changed. Frankly speaking, it is not a smooth conversation among us. At first, they will make me feel like a proud daughter, but later, every day, there will be plenty of arguments and differences of opinion. Of course, I am the daughter they raised for so many years, and that is completely normal. It doesn’t matter to them if I am a grown adult now.
They saw the pictures.
But pictures can never replace being there.
My aloe vera plants have been here almost as long as this house has.
They multiplied. They grew. They stayed even after all my rookie gardening experiments. I should agree they are strongest members of this household.
There were a few other plants and even a few fish that quietly became part of this home. They never asked for much, but somehow their presence mattered. They were just there, growing alongside us and never complained.
In a strange way, they became little reminders that life was happening here.
My daughter found her own little world here too.
With a little help from us, she created her space. She knows where everything belongs. She knows which things are hers and where they should go.
Her toy room would probably be her answer if you asked her which room was the best.
She spent hours there with her friends—pretend play, soccer, stories, games, and whatever else children can invent when they are together.
She also learned how to clean and organize it.
Well…
After multiple crazy mom sessions. You know how it works with toddlers.
We planned and painted that room together. We decided on the mountains. We created a sticker area. And finally, we added a blackboard.
The blackboard wall became a canvas for the kids.
And my friends made all of this possible. They became painters, sanders, planners, and laborers. None of us were professionals, but we had confidence—which, honestly, is sometimes more dangerous to others.
We worked together, laughed together, and created something that now feels much bigger than paint on a wall.
That’s what makes this house special.
It was never about how perfect it looked.
It was about how many people became part of making it feel like home.
My husband has his own version of this house too.
He probably spent half his time in the study and the other half on the living room sofa.
His favorite was the corner seat.
His favorite blanket.
His TV and his Laptop.
His coffee.
His snacks.
That corner was his little world with hours of TV time in his own Zen mode.
And then there are my two memory walls.
One is our family wall.
Every photograph on that wall was selected carefully because every picture represents something I cherish. Some are big moments. Some are ordinary moments. But every one of them means something to me.
I would sometimes sit on the stairs and simply look at that wall from below for a few minutes.
No particular reason. Just beautiful to stare at.
The second memory wall is in our master bedroom. It holds my daughter’s schoolwork, her awards and special moments at her school.
Every time I look at it, I see more than papers and pictures.
This house has been keeping time for us.
And somewhere in all of that, I have changed too.
I came into this house as one version of myself.
I am leaving as another.
I can have another kitchen.
Another garden.
Another living room.
Another wall where I can hang pictures.
I can build another home.
But I cannot bring back my daughter to this exact age.
I cannot recreate these friendships exactly as they were.
I cannot recreate the children running through this kitchen.
And I cannot go back in time and bring my parents through the front door for the first time.
That is the part my heart is having trouble accepting.
I know life moves forward.
I know homes change.
I know people move.
I know there will be another place, another chapter, and new memories waiting for us.
But moving forward doesn’t mean I have to stop loving what I am leaving behind.
So, XXXX Brushwood St., thank you.
Thank you for giving my daughter some of her happiest childhood memories.
Thank you for giving beautiful and long-lasting memories here.
And thank you for being my first.
My first home.
My first investment.
The first place that truly felt like something I had created.
My first place where I looked around and thought,
This is ours.
Maybe that’s why this goodbye hurts so much.
This house became such a big part of my life that leaving it feels like leaving a little piece of myself behind.
Goodbye, Brushwood St.
You were never just a house.
You were a part of us.
You were a part of me.
And you will always be…
my first love.
The Moments we hold 