9 Months, and Getting ready to sell...

We've been getting our condo prepped the past few days to put on the market to sell.

There's a mix of emotions happening for me right now...

Obviously, our realtor asked us to declutter our house.  I knew this was coming...but the extent to which we really needed to go didn't really hit me till last week, as I sat boxing up things and putting them away.

The pictures on our built-in--Of the 3 of us at the hospital.  Your teddy bear that holds your ashes.  The rose from the OC Walk to Remember that we dried.  It's all still out.

And I somehow have to put most of this away for now.

I understand the reasons, and I have gotten it put away.  But pulling it all down right that second made me cry.

This is where our story began.  And soon (hopefully), we'll be moving forward to somewhere else.  It's all for the best, I know that deep inside. But giving it up to get there is a hard notion to come to grips with.

I opened the drawers in your dresser, Luke.  It's doing things like that that make me cry and miss you the most.  I don't do it very often.  It holds the most tangible things that were supposed to be part of your existence.  Socks.  Hats.  Swaddlers.  Tiny shoes.

It's so unfair--how we have so many things meant for a baby who will never arrive. How we just can't know if we'll get to use any of your things in the future. 

How wrong it will feel giving these things to anyone else--even a sibling.

There are books on your bookshelf that we were supposed to read to you.  But now they'll be your brother or sister's someday, hopefully.  

It still hurts that you never got the chance to see any of it.  Especially because all of it was picked out specifically for you.

Taking down your Star Wars mobile that's hanging from the ceiling is probably going to be the hardest part.  I don't know why, but it's probably because it was the first handmade gift that one of my very best friends made for you.  I remember thinking about how excited I was when Kelly sent that to us--that everything was finally coming together--and this piece--it was SO PERFECT.  In every way.  I haven't gotten to that part, yet.

It all just feels so empty now.  The love is still there, but it's different.

I'll be sad to move out of our condo sometime soon.  But at the same time, I'm happy to move forward.  Hopeful.  I know that many things will never change being here.  Our neighbors will always be terrible.  This will never be a good condo to have a child in.  And you will always be gone.

But to start somewhere fresh, moving forward as who we are now, with you in our hearts, feels like the most right thing to do.  So while I will miss everything that we've created here for our family (that includes you), I know that we can take you with us anywhere, always.  

I can't believe it's been 9 months.  It feels like eternity at this point.  So much of life has moved forward. 

I fear what this will feel like 3 months, 1 year, even 10 years from now.  Because I'm scared that I'll feel so far away from having lost you.  That day in September was our only day together.  And I'm scared I'll somehow forget it. 

Rational-Me knows that's impossible, though.