Epilogue for Elliott Avenue

It's approaching midnight, and I'm sitting on the back deck of my new house on Linden Avenue, listening to the siren on a fire engine - probably Engine No. 8 - in the distance (some things never change about city life).  I left our house on Elliott Avenue for the last time about a half hour ago.

Today, Jude and I swept and mopped the floors at our old house (how strange to call it our "old" house).  I cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer.  Jude did several loads of laundry, as there is no washer and dryer in our new house.  The moving crew - who were great - moved the remaining items they couldn't find room for on the truck yesterday.  Duane mowed the grass, trimmed the yard and generally cleaned it up nicely.  He also removed the sandbox from the back yard.  Much to Joe's chagrin, it had rotted and couldn't be moved to the new house.  Duane also took another load of junk to the landfill.

Tonight, after dinner, Jude and I took J.P. and Joe to our old house for one last look around, and to pick up our cats, N.C. and Mini-T.  I smiled sadly when J.P. said to no one in particular, as he walked into Joe's empty bedroom downstairs, "I wish we could stay here just one more day."  Me, too, J.P., I thought, me, too.

The boys wandered around a bit, upstairs, then downstairs.  It was cute, as they were already in their pajamas.  It appeared that, like us, they already had said their goodbyes to our old house.

Earlier in the afternoon, when Jude and I were sweeping and mopping the empty rooms, I literally felt a dull ache in my stomach and chest.  It's strange, I know, but I felt so sad to know we were leaving and that I would never live in that house again.  My heart felt so heavy.  It's hard to explain, because I don't think I've felt that way before, but I felt this overwhelming, palpable sense of sadness.  I almost had to stop and sit down to collect myself and my emotions.

The boys were worn out when we left our old house with the cats, so we moved straight into our bedtime routine when we got back to the new house.  My tentative plan, at that point, was to put the boys in bed, then return to our old house.  I was going to go for a final run, finish at Bongo Java, get a "Mood Elevator, " then walk home like I have so many times over the last 12 + years.  Of course, it didn't quite work out that way.  It took longer to get the boys in bed than I had hoped, so I skipped the run, drove over to Bongo Java, and drank a "Mood Elevator" there.  Then, I went to our old house to finish cleaning, take out the trash and pick up the odds and ends that were still there.

I had planned to end the night by sitting on the front porch, drinking a beer and writing a blog post about how I felt, in the moment, to be leaving our old house once and for all.  Much to my surprise, though, I got busy cleaning and loading my truck, and by the time I was done, I just wanted to get home, and be with my family, even though they would probably all be asleep.  And that's when it hit me.  Home wasn't on Elliott Avenue any longer, it was in our new house on Linden Avenue.  I felt a sense of relief, as I locked the front door for the last time and took my key off my keychain and left it in the mailbox.  Finally, at long last, I was ready to move on, to my new home.

Jude and I, and later, the boys, got as much out of our house on Elliott Avenue as we possibly could over the last 12 + years.  As I told Duane when we were standing in the front yard talking today, the Elliott Avenue house wasn't perfect, but it was perfect for us.

It's funny, but this afternoon while we were cleaning, Jude reminded me of something we had said when we were deciding whether to buy the house in 2002.  As we looked at it with my cousin, Alice, we wondered if we were really cool enough to own that house.  In the city, exposed brick on the inside, giant maple tree in the front yard, gorgeous mantle over the fireplace, original hardwood floors throughout and original old, smoky glass windows.  No driveway and no garage, just parking on the street and living in the 'hood!  Well, it turns out, we were plenty cool enough to own that house.  And we were plenty cool enough to have two boys who lived in that house with us.

And so, as I turned off all the lights inside for the last time, as I turned off the front porch lights and locked the front door, then dropped the keys in the mailbox, there were no tears or prolonged sighs or remembrances of times passed.

The end was just the end.  And that's as it should be.