a plot change close to home

I've been begging my husband to move since the day after we bought our first house. Well, maybe I waited a whopping 36 hours. Anyway, the first night we spent here is still etched in my memory: a woman screaming in a language I didn't understand at a man in the middle of the street in front of our house at 3am. Welcome home.

The next day I found out I was pregnant - and no, we weren't expecting it. We quickly placed what minimal furniture we owned in the two rooms we used the most and then got to work on the nursery. We poured heart, sweat, soul, and our last dollar into that little room. I repainted my husband's childhood dresser at least four times before I was happy with it. We ordered butterfly and flower decals off of Etsy and painstakingly peeled and stuck them in spirals and swooshes across the fresh coat of chocolate colored paint. We hung up little baby outfits or folded separates into tiny squares. A row of impossibly small shoes. Crib, changing table, lots and lots of diapers, a glider refurbished by my aunt. You get the idea. We cared about that room. And for the better part of my daughter's first two months of life, I practically lived in it. Even now it's one of my favorite places on earth.

I tell you all of that to tell you this: I can't wait to move, literally counting down the minutes to get the heck out of here. But today we found our *hopefully* new house and the idea of leaving behind this little room makes my heart hurt. When we put her to bed tonight, I got defensive for our house that I detest: So what if people whiz by our stumpy driveway at 45mph? So what if the main reason people go to our neighborhood pool parking lot is to trade illegal substances? So what if someone tried to get in to our house through our basement door while I was home last week? This room is worth it. Then I realized what I was comparing and wanted to smack myself. Yes, some of my favorite memories in life are in that room, and we'll take them with us when pack up and move somewhere we can thrive. But we've gotten the best out of that room, and it's time to move on.

I'm sure I'll take a few pictures for posterity and fight it though I might, I'll probably shed a tear or two when we turn off the light for the last time. (My daughter will probably attempt to say "dark" and it'll make my throat tight.) But this is the best thing for all of us, for the good of the whole, my mother says. And I'm sure there's a tie-in to a literary lesson somewhere, and it's either so obvious I don't need to point it out or so abstract and philosophical that it can't possibly have been intentional on my part.