I want to start out to say that I am and have been grateful that I was able to find and buy another home after Jesse and Bella died. I can’t imagine the amount of messed up I would be having to stay in the house where it happened. I can barely drive by it and only have three times over the past three plus years. 

However, you have seen me write about how being there affects me. This is going to be harsh. So be warned. Before Jesse did what he did, he looked at our life insurance policy (I know this and cannot say the how I know). He knew I would be “ok” in his distorted thinking. Much like most people who have suicidal thoughts, he was hopeless and felt like a burden. I wish. I wish I could shake him until the sense got knocked into him to tell him otherwise. I wish I knew then what I know now. The house that I bought after, as many times as I have tried to change the thinking in my brain, I feel like was bought with blood money. I know. But I have always promised honesty, and there it it. It is also the house that I had to move to because of what happened in mine. I moved there because I was forced from my home. We had wanted to move anyways, but this was not how I wanted it to happen.

The house is beautiful, full of the funk and charm of many Portland houses and was perfect for Raffi and I. But there has always been this lingering current that runs under me in it. When I went away, I would sometimes have a panic attack coming back to it. I knew eventually we would move, did not know the when and how of it until recently.

My boyfriend and I had talked about moving in together and decided the beginning of the year would be a good time to start to plan and look. Ha! Murphy had other ideas. We looked close to his work in Vancouver one day towards the end of August, doing some reconnaissance seeing if “going over the bridge” was worth it.  We pulled some houses off of Zillow for shits and giggles and set out. At the end of the day, we said, hmm, there was only one we liked, and damn it is a good price, great neighborhood, etc.  Maybe we should look? Sure. That was Thursday, we looked Sunday and put an offer in on Tuesday.  I cannot for the life of me decide on what toilet bowl brush to buy and can spend an hour looking at the options in Ross.  But a house, no problem.

I am sitting in the office writing this as we speak. It has a functional office. I set up a card table with his office chair to see how it felt. One of the things lacking over the past three years is a space to write. I have been either in my dining room or in a coffee shop.  Neither terrible, but in my house, I can always find ways to procrastinate. In a coffee shop, it is sometimes hard to focus. I want to write a book. It is in my head and I feel like I finally can have the dedicated space to do so.

I look out into the front and being up on a hill, I am overlooking the multitude of colors that nature offers come fall. I look out in the backyard and close my eyes and am transformed to a park, with greenery everywhere, and a rushing river/waterfall nearby bringing the peace to my body and mind that being in nature can only do.

And it is ours. I trip on the ease of it all. Yes, there was the pain in getting the mortgages, the packing, the move. But we sailed through it. And still like each other! I trip on the fact that I trust and love someone on this intimate level. I never thought I would get this, any of it. I feel like I won the lottery and am grateful beyond words…ok, stopping now before I cry happy tears.

The view from the kitchen window. Yes, that is a waterfall.

Happy dog. The view from the front window.