It’s funny how a song can make you sit, look around, and realize that you need to live in the moment. As I sit here toggling between Facebook, blog posts, Bible, Twitter, YouTube, and various google pages to look up things, I stop. Sitting at this old wooden table in this kitchen makes me remember the memories in which it holds. The nights of laughter, sitting and playing Jeopardy while eating dinner, and carving pumpkins for Halloween. This house holds so many that I will never give up and never forget.

I can look up and see the decorations on the wall, I can touch them. I can also sit here and see them disappear one by one until the kitchen lays barren. My personality can be very rushed at times and I have been trying to learn to sit and enjoy where I’m at in the now. It’s a big flaw of ours. I’m so hurried to get back down to Florida that I’m taking from the beauty of today and our final months spent in North Carolina. This is the state I’ve always wanted to end up in one day. Why can’t I stop and think, “Bets, you’re here. Enjoy this because you’ll be in your new home and miss this. You know you will.”

So I’m trying to tell myself. Be in the now. Take it all in. Remember. Look outside. Remember when Eddie would be in the pool completely naked and ask Pops to swim with him? How he would push on Pop’s stomach and he would fall back violently, screaming, and Eddie’s laugh would reverberate through the whole neighborhood. The precious look of love and being proud in Chris’s eyes were something I’ll never forget.

Looking up and to your left, there’s Eddie sitting on the couch, playing on his kindle. But when you look just a little further over you see the chair empty. It’s where Pops would be sitting on his kindle, taking time from his work day to spend it with us. Bring up an article to read and discuss, or put on some tunes for us to sing along to. Or, the best, when he would put Spotify on the tv and turn it up really loud. You’d hear Mom from the other room, “Turn it down!!” To which he would turn the volume down two points and start to laugh. What I wouldn’t give to have my eardrums blown away by some Sturgill Simpson, Pearl Jam, or Bob Dylan. Now I just sit blowing my own away through noise cancelling headphones to drown out the noise in my head.

There’s so much to appreciate in a good home. This one was always full, never broken. It’s been a home that has shown me loyalty, love, and respect for my son and I. Full of promise, hope, and the will to want to finally listen to the countless conversations about how I deserved better. Sitting on the porch talking about where I’m going, what I need to do about my relationship, and the drinking. You helped me see that I was so much more. As intimidating and tough love as you were, it’s what I needed the most. It’s the talks, it’s the panic attacks, it’s the anxiety, it’s what eventually helped me to break and finally want to live to my full potential. If you had one job to bring me back to me, you did it and you did it with pride and honesty.

Thanks for the memories, Pops. Every single one of them. This house feels your presence all around and I have a feeling, it’ll be following us wherever we go. -Bets