It's Day 16 of the March Slice of Life Story Challenge, and I'm writing a goodbye letter to our house in a series of memories since we will be moving in April.
I love this picture of Libby when she was 13, showing off her bright orange and lime green room. Yes, bright orange and lime green. She chose those colors shortly after we moved in, and we went with it. (Katie's was a bubblegum pink). She had her Pirates of the Caribbean posters on either side of her cheerful name, a blue lava lamp on her bedside table, and her twin doll sitting in a little chair between the dresser and bed. Thirteen was a hard age for Libby, but she still expressed joy through her room. Thirteen is also such an ambivalent time, too. Caught between childhood and young womanhood. Her room here was evidence of that transition.
Another unique aspect of Libby's room was her closet door. I'm not sure exactly how the custom started, but somehow it became a thing for her to ask her friends to sign it. I just went through and read them all tonight when I took the pictures - it is a map of her time spent in this house. You can see the evolution of her friendships, from 6th grade to college, ending with her husband's siblings! Cousins, her sister, grandparents, and friends' parents' notes and signatures are there. A history.
When we decided to put the house up for sale, she went through her room, organizing, purging, and boxing things up that she wanted to keep. Her husband, Jamie, helped her. There was a lot of stuff!! After she cleared it out, we decided it should be painted a more neutral color.
While the new color and cleaned out room is calmer and better for staging the house, all of Libby's personality was gone. Boring! Now that she's married, and we're downsizing, she won't have a room all to herself in our new place. That seems so strange. There's a room, though, that will be set up for Jamie and Libby when they spend the night, but it's not really "Libby's room". An end of an era. Maybe I should paint "Libby and Jamie's room" a bright orange and lime green...
It's Libby's birthday tomorrow; she's our St. Patrick's Day baby. Happy 23rd birthday, Lib!
