East Hampton

It's Monday. I am drinking my coffee, the baby is eating pears and pancakes in her little chair, and Olivia is getting dressed, while watching Full House re-runs. She is really into that show. I think that is funny. We had a long weekend. We went to East Hampton. That is where David grew up, and my parents live. David and I met, and fell in love, and got married there. We lived in a little cottage by the bay. It had no heat. No heat. It also had no insulation. It also had the kind of fuses that screwed in. The place was a tinderbox, waiting to happen. We had a tiny wood burning stove. We worked all day, and came home, and the first job was to light a fire. That was David's job. He was the firestarter. I would prepare dinner, and open the wine, and light candles. We ate, and sat by the fire, and drank copious amounts of wine, listened to records, and told all of our stories to eachother, and played Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit, for hours. It was magic. Pure magic. The house temperature probably never got above 50 degress, but we didn't care. It was the Winter of 2000, our Winter of Love.
David proposed to me, with his Grandmother's ring, that Spring, on the deck of that cottage. We ate pizza, and drank more wine, and called everyone we knew, to tell them of our wonderful news. It was such an exciting time. Everything was new. Life was on the verge of starting upon a new journey. Love made it all the more sweeter. Anything was possible. 
We lived in that house, on 25 Rutland Road, until 2003. We spent our wedding night there, had amazing dinner parties there, and late night gatherings, all with copious amounts of wine. (I am starting to see a theme here) We coneived our first child there. We brought her home from the hospital there and had sleepless nights where we all wanted to cry, right along with her. We packed our life up and moved to Pennsylvania. I cried the day we left 25 Rutland Road. It was the end of something so huge, and life changing, and romantic, and warm, and beautiful. It was a home to us. It was a home to our love. It's where it all began. 
We went back this past weekend. David's best friend, Craig, and his wife, Anita, purchased 25 Rutland Road when we decided to move out of it, and pass on the offer to buy it. I wanted to stay home, and raise our child. If we had bought the home, the mortgage would have been tremendous, and I would have had no choice but to work. It was a no brainer to pass on it, but a painful decision to leave our life in East Hampton, and our love shack behind, and head into the unknown. 
We have been in Pennsylvania since 2003. We moved here when Olivia was just 2 months old. David had no job, we had no health insurance, we knew no one here, and just thinking about that first year I shudder. It has been a journey of epic proportions here, in that time. It has been a struggle. It has had it's terrifying moments, and it has had it's joys. We welcomed two more beautiful baby girls into our family, and into our home. We have had many a night filled with copious amounts of wine. We have had Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit games by candlelight, with records playing. We have had dinner parties and holidays. I played Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy here. Cleaned up more vomit and poop than I care to say. Cooked meals, cried, screamed, threatened to walk away from it all, watched my babies take their first steps. Had birthday parties, and quiet New Years eve dinners, cleaned up boo boos, soothed fears, paid bills, didn't pay bills, ignored 800 number calls, perfected Chicken Picatta and Fritatta's. Cried over a miscarriage. Learned how impatient I am, and questioned my marrieage, and my purpose on this earth here. All here. in my home in Pennsylvania. 
We spent the weekend at 25 Rutland Road. Always strange going back there. The house is un-recognizable. They gutted it. Added a second floor. Tore off the deck that David proposed to me on. Replaced every fixture, and window, and floor board, doorknob, and sink. When you stand in it, and look around, it is not the Love shack anymore. Not even a little. But when you close your eyes, the sun still streams in just as it did the Winter of our Love. The birds in the trees still chirp their lovely songs, and the smell of the bay can be detected on the breeze. Their is a presence of us there. It will always remain.