So you want to live off the grid eh'? Part 3

Do I really want to leave my home? My children were raised here, there friends were raised here. If I lean my head back and close my eyes, I can hear the giggles and whispers, the screaming and fighting that brothers and sisters do so well, the laughter , the tears, the secrets only a well used home can tell.

And finally, my home is now perfect, gone are the mismatched tables in the kids room, new couches in the living room, the family room has become a media room, all the doors can be left open because there is no mess to hide in the bedrooms. The colours and knick- knacks are placed exactly how and where I want them. I even have the good towels out. The air has the fragrance of whatever wax melt I have bubbling in the pot at the moment and no longer has the mixed smell of coconut and gym locker au de perfume.

It's blissfull. It's sublime. It's not though, not really, I always imagined Sunday family dinners, and my kids and their boisterous offspring tumbling in the door unannounced. The kids left to live their lives, and I was left to live mine, but I was a mother, that was a big chunk of who I was. Sure I was a wife and I worked and I had friends, but my heart, my heart was being a mother. It was horrible to realize that vital role had now changed and was on the back burner.

I look out the window and I see cars whizzing by heedless of the fact that their are children, children that I do not know, that live on this road. When did the traffic get so busy? I see teenagers that I do not know , waking to school, I hear the other neighbours sprinkler still running 24/7 as she waters the weeds in her rock garden, sweet old gal, but the water that is wasted even on the hottest and the coldest days boggles my mind. The other neighbour on the other side leaves and does not wave, this is an era where they have no intrest in who is living beside them. I was so involved in my era another one snuck up on me that I know nothing about.

It is in that moment I realize, home....home is where the heart is and this is just a house..