Mixed Media: I know that I am home

Usually when someone buys or acquires a new home there's a celebration. Champagne corks are popped and bottles broken against the facade, the classic photo is taken with the new set of keys held by the owners at closing and blasted across social media. 

Sometimes, though, the experience is a completely different thing and yet still deserves its own type of homage paid to it. 

My family and I are about to fully acquire my childhood home. I say fully because paperwork is still being processed to make it mine and my husband's, and yet it's ours now all the same. 

The home my parents purchased in 1991 which led us to move to a small, coastal island town from Queens in NYC, full of hopes and dreams for a better life and future. 

The home filled with laughter, but as many teenaged arguments. 

The home I left and swore I'd never come back to when I was 21, leaving for college. 

And yet the home, I did move back to at age 29 a year after my dad passed away so I could be with mom. 

I never intended moving back to mean forever, but then I met my now husband and fast forward to a pregnancy with my oldest, I expressed that I wanted to stay here to be with mom - I didn't want her to be alone and we made that work. 

But 9 years, 2 kids, a dog later, my mother has walked a hard journey this past year and passed away, but she wanted us to have this house. 

And we want to have this house, too. 

I'll be honest - it isn't a fancy place. This 130-year old historic old cottage needs a lot of repair and it overwhelms me to no end. But this place I left and returned to, something I swore I'd never do? It means the world to me. 

It holds memories, bad and good. 

It holds heartbreak and hopes and dreams. 

It holds the history of my childhood, of my dad and my mom, and still holds the essence of them here, God rest their souls. 

And with the right love and attention building up on a good foundation, it holds the future of our family and hopefully will for generations to come. 

So am I grateful? One hundred percent absolutely, without a doubt. But am I celebrating? Perhaps one day I will, but for now the raw emotion of losing my mother is bittersweet - I'd rather have her here than inherit a house. 

Yet I felt the need to express all of this into some type of commemorative art as a homage to this place because I've acquired a special place where I know that I am home. 

And I know this house's story isn't close to over yet. 

This old house. 

 

(and project details)

Scrapaholics Chipboard - Town Buildings

Scrapaholics Chipboard - Town Buildings

See the project, process details and shop products at my affiliate gallery (link below!) with Scrapbook.com . Feel free to simply look or keep in mind if you choose to shop through this link after browsing, it costs no extra to you but earns me a small commission to help support my art and my family. Thanks in advance! 

See the project in the gallery here