Can You Have a Love Affair With a House?

We brought our babies home there, shared gossip and laughter and heartbreak and hysteria with our closest friends there, and scrubbed the worn brick on the kitchen floor there at least 1,000 times. It was the only home our daughters, now ages 10 and 7, ever knew until the move.

We have a lovely house in our new location, but I miss my old house so much I feel as though I've lost my best friend. It doesn’t help that the new owner loves the house so much that she can barely contain herself. Selling the house was so emotional for me that I took care not to meet the new owners, letting my husband and our realtor handle all the transactions.

But she was so crazy about the house that she popped up unexpectedly at the back door one day to reassure me that she’s going to love the house until the day she dies. She plans to remodel the kitchen, finish the basement, polish the hardwoods and paint every room according to her own exquisite taste. I felt absolutely devastated. Imagine getting a divorce, then listening to your husband's new wife discuss how she's going to fix him up and love him and make him happier than he's ever been. I really just don't want to know.