John and I have noticed that our Florida road trip has given us a fresh perspective on the house situation. We’re still head-over-heels for the new place — nearly two months after moving in I’ll wander up the stairs and whisper, “duuuuude, we have a second floor” — and each wall we strip and paint helps us feel more at home. That said, leaving our second house was bittersweet. Even as we settle into this new chapter, the old house lingers in our minds in a familiar, comforting way.
Traveling makes the contrast especially clear: the old house is still vivid in our memories, every corner remembered, while the new house feels like a place we’re just getting to know. We don’t yet know where every light switch is or how each door swings. The previous home feels lovingly familiar, and the new one has that early-stage excitement of a relationship — we’re smitten, even though there’s plenty of work ahead.
There are moments when I’ll be sitting on the beach and my thoughts drift to the new house: Is it raining there? Is something silly happening in the sunroom? Then my mind hops to the family that now lives in our old house, and that feels surprisingly sweet. I’m relieved it isn’t empty. I know it sounds sentimental — but I’m okay with that.
Before we packed everything away, one of the last things we did was make a video tour of the old house for Clara, the same way we did when we left our first home. This time she wasn’t a tiny baby — she could talk, run, and direct the camera. At first she was a little shy, but she quickly warmed up and began calling the shots: telling us which rooms to show, pointing out details in each space, and offering hilarious commentary like telling us “we’re in New Jersey” when I asked which room we were filming.
For those who can’t watch the video, here’s a quick summary of the moments we captured: John and Clara playing “airplane” in the office, some playful make-believe doctoring in the sunroom, Clara bossing us around in the hallway and her nursery, dress-up sessions with a frog costume, jumping on the guest bed, and a classic toss-on-our-bed moment. There’s a scene of us standing together in the bathtub, a random burst of Gangnam Style dancing, and perhaps the only house tour video to include the line “that’s not your cousin, it’s a llama.” Simple, everyday scenes, but they add up to a lifetime of memories.
That second house shaped so many early years for Clara. We moved in when she was seven months old, and it’s where she learned to crawl, take her first steps, and practice her early words. She celebrated three birthdays there and enjoyed three Christmases that all feel woven into the rooms and light of that home.
We’re grateful to have a trove of photos and videos thanks to our habit of documenting home life. My favorite small memory from that house is a tiny, odd nook in the living room where Clara loved to hide. It was a simple corner, but it became a magical spot in her childhood.
Now she’s declared her new closet to be “my favoritest hiding spot in the big wide world,” and that feels perfectly fitting. Homes change, families grow, and the things that mattered in one house find new life in another.
Love that bean. Love that house. Love you all for indulging the sappy stuff. Now somebody hand me a tissue before I cry my sunscreen off.
*We would have posted this sooner, but John’s computer had a meltdown while editing a few weeks after we moved and nearly wiped out many of our photos and videos. So here’s the obligatory reminder to back up your files so you don’t end up screaming into a pillow for hours. For us, a combination of cloud storage and external hard drives saved the photos and videos we’d have been devastated to lose.