My home sold this week in a finally closed short sale.

I expected to feel relieved. I expected to feel like one more thing was off my plate. I expected to feel…..something.

At first all I felt was nothing. A big emptiness, a void where a house had been. In fact for a whole day after the final paperwork I kept looking for feelings and couldn’t find any.

The morning after it sold I woke up, sat down with my coffee, and burst into uncontrollable sobs. For about forty-five minutes I cried like I had lost my best friend. Grief hits you like that sometimes. You get through the hard part stoically, then when it’s all over it sideswipes you when you aren’t looking.

Losing a home involves grief and mourning, if only for the good times you shared there and for the times you thought were ahead. My youngest reminded me there were also the middle of the night “I’m losing the farm” nightmares, when reality started to creep through my denial. So after all, in the end you just let it go. Like a divorce, you remember the good times, but you also know it wasn’t going to end the way you had hoped in the beginning, and “all the King’s horses and all the King’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again!”