A House and a Home

Been busy house hunting for the past three weeks or so.

Exciting, interesting, riveting and of course tiring. It helped that I have been trained on Options Analysis, Success Criteria and Key Drivers. It made a big difference when it boiled down to the Final Two choices.

As I was looked forward previewing the so-called future home towering above me, I could not help but also think about our home in Sta. Rosa, Laguna that will be the soon-to-be-ex-house with poignant memories. Come to think of it, two years ago my husband and I made the big leap to finally build our home/house and it ended to be everything we both dreamed of and a place where the kids would be warm and secured. It was in a way a symbolic commitment on our end that it was a place where we would now be settling down for the many years to come. We even thought of selling the land and moving on the side of Sta. Rosa where new neighborhoods and villages are bustling. But we also believed that it wasnt just the prestige of those new places that mattered -- really, it was our community of friends in La Joya and their warm treatment of Kevin that held us back. That home also brought about many blessings and good karma to our family. Alvin and I both felt good we stayed in La Joya. The thought of having to relinquish ties with the old home seemed unnerving. I thought of every stick and stone that carried priceless memories.

In the Settling-In tour that Alvin and I had during his visit to Singapore, a nice Swiss lady was assigned as our settling in consultant. She has been married for more than 16 years and lived all those years in SG. Over a nice lunch at Lee Soy Chicken Rice (I hope I remembered it right...) along the SG backstreets, she shared something that her husband told her once when they were deliberating to sell their house in Switzerland ... "A house is just a house."

I had to tell myself again. A house is just a house. I had to bow to the wisdom behind these words.

A house is just a house. But HOME is where the HEART is.

 

A house is just a house. We can have so many houses in a lifetime. We actually did. But there can only be one home.