Went up to Manchester on Sunday to start the clearing out process. Seems that the closing date for the sale was pushed up to the end of this month, rather than mid-June, to facilitate some repairs that will apparently coincide with the new owner building a combined garage and woodshop attached to the house.

The repairs, shall we say, are serious enough that it almost killed the sale. That my sister and I were not immediately reachable almost screwed things up, too, but luck willed out and we were able to reach a new agreement.

The biggest discovery on Sunday was what little in the house actually belonged to us. Outside of photos and Christmas decorations, just about everything in the house belongs to my aunt. Which I suppose makes sense, given that she's moved pretty much everything in her house into our house, but it wasn't what I originally expected. She is starting her move to my sister's house today (as I type, even), but has hired people to move her.

Which was one of the more annoying aspects of Sunday. We were all there ready to work, the three of us and our significant others, and we did very little. We could have packed boxes for my aunt, or moved things around to facilitate the moving process today, but no go. The other, larger issue here is that my aunt is moving to a much smaller space. I don't know where she thinks all of her stuff is going to go, but it won't all fit in my sister's house. And she already has storage space rented out for things from her original house that she's not touched in over a year!

Sadly, I think I share her tendencies. Moving from BU to Brighton to Babson required that I become much less attached to certain things. Part of this was the natural process of moving, winnowing out items of little use. But part of it was also the deadline I had to get out so the new person could move in, and that resulted in some wholesale dumping.

I do think there's a genetic characteristic to this, as my dad had a similar predeliction. He would bring thing back to the house, though. I remember one time he brought back an old counter stool from a diner, and the argument he had with my mother about it. She saw it as a waste of space, while he thought there was some value to it. Probably was, actually, had we tried to restore it or sell it. What actually happened is that the stool spent several years in the cellar before being discarded again, most likely for good.

Oddly enough, I felt very little nostalgia on Sunday. When I've talked about the house sale before, I've definately felt at odds with what we were doing. It doesn't help that Sarah and I (more her than me, which is surprising) are considering moving back to Manchester at some point, but aren't in a position to move into the house and work out the financial arrangements.

But on Sunday, as we pulled away with our smallish hoard of lights, balls, and pictures of me which are sure to be used for evil purposes, I didn't feel that sense of sadness that I expected. I think it's because it stopped being our house when my dad died. Some of the things that we recognized as belonging to our house were still there, but the people who made the house our house were gone.

Perhaps this is one of those "duh" moments where something that most people see as true has only made itself apparent to me recently, but that difference between house and home is key. I think I would feel worse if we were selling the house because my folks were moving, because it would seem disjointed. Trips home wouldn't be like going home. It'd be more like a very long stay in a rental. But now that what I've considered home is gone (I love my aunt, but seeing her was never the equal to going home in my mind), selling the house is a final, logical act. It's a capstone on that part of my life where home was at 99 Pleasant Street.

What comes next is the part of my life where I make someplace a home for my family.