Moving to Laguna Beach tomorrow

Today's our last day in the house we rented near the flat sands of Huntington Beach. A very large house, we took it a year and a half ago to hold my new husband's three daughters and my own son, as well as the detrius and hastily accumulated furnishings of our previous divorces from our kid's parents, plus the stuff we bought to make everyone happy under the same roof. Now, two of the daughters are long gone, to live in the ways they see fit. The eldest still lives with us quite happily, as well she should, getting seriously cheap room and board and a little brother to torment for free. Together, we are a happy family, something I wanted for so long and finally have. I don't take it for granted.
Today I'm surrounded by the things we will keep and those destined for the Salvation Army (Goodwill won't pick up, so I'll pass along the stuff to the Army, who does good work despite the evangelical Christian mission they espouse on their website).
The weather-beaten tables, the Afghan carpet of a muddy brown and sapphire blue my husband bought when he lived in India, the leather sofa from Restoration Hardware we bought after he said, "If I buy us this sofa, you can never leave me," and I agreed, after three months of dating...some of these will come to our new home with us. Others, like the daughters who no longer live here, will not. It is a time for me, this morning, of sorting, holding, and tossing away. The favored childhood books will stay, but the 100 other favored childhood books will not. We cannot have it all in this new house. It is a large enough house, as houses go, but smaller than the rental house where we first became a family. There's not enough room for the things we carried to this point if we want to make something new and beautiful out of the place we will now inhabit. Today I savor, and toss. There is a sadness, but it is good. Tomorrow, we move.