Selling My Italian Childhood Home

The Process of Letting Go and Embracing Change

Photo by the author

The time has come to sell my childhood home, and it’s breaking my heart.
It’s an emotional journey filled with existential questions, practical challenges, a sense of guilt, and a flood of memories that wash over me like a tsunami.

Let’s start by saying that it’s the only home my family ever lived in.
We never moved from that place in the Italian countryside at the edge of the woods. Consequently, it holds within its walls approximately 35 years of our family’s life.

Multiple times I felt jealous of those classmates who moved houses many times with their families and were used to changing, packing, moving, and letting go.
Despite us being quite a nomadic and simple family — with regular long and wild van holidays on the road, minimal lifestyle, and not many belongings — that place was always a sacred magical base.
It’s a rustic country home with a garden, where my parents poured their hearts into crafting most of the interiors, merging their skills and passions, in wood and fabric: the celebration of their union.

All my primal memories are intertwined with that place.
There’s a unique smell of home, that I remember from coming back…