Saying Goodbye to the Cottage

Saying goodbye to our cottage this week broke our hearts.

That was the first place Adam and I called home together.

We got engaged there, and then married on the front stoop.

The yard was StanLee’s first patch of earth to call his own.

It’s where Sophee joined our family.

It’s where West took his first steps— within the exact same 6’ square that, years later, he happily danced in for hours on end to delightfully obnoxious holiday songs. I

t’s where we’d stand to chat over fences and through doorways with our neighbors, who became part of our family.

We hugged nearly everyone we love dearly under the roof of that house.

It was the heart of my small business.

It was our little world.

Not a day went by in those 10 years that Adam and I didn’t stop to acknowledge out loud to one another how grateful we were to live (and work) there.

It meant so very much to us.

As I sat propped up in bed in an Airbnb during our drive across the country, bawling my tired eyes out in the middle of the night, Adam’s hand lightly touched down on my body just in time to feel the baby move. West slept safely in bed with us. The pups gently snored at our feet. Everything that matters most was pressed up against my skin. I know that.

But still.

That goodbye really, really hurt.