Home sweet home, the lovely memories of Hillsboro

It feels like just yesterday, when two freshly minted graduates from UT Austin, landed in this exquisite place in the gorgeous summers of 2009. I instantly fell in love with this beautiful small city of Hillsboro, and my heart used to sing the Bollywood song,

"Ye hansi vaadiyan ye khula aasma, 

aa gaye hum kaha aye mere saajna...". 

We took just a couple of days to set up our elegant newly built Nexus apartment before joining Intel and becoming one of the many Intel couples who we later met in and around the area.

Then the life began with many firsts coming our way one after the other. Buying our first car, the Honda Accord coupe, literally 10 days before we came to know that we have started on the journey of becoming parents to our first child. Striving to find a house to buy before the child arrives. Finding our perfect home sweet home, raising our budget by a $100K to get this corner house in the Village at Orenco community, right next to the park, a perfect size backyard, and lots of sunlight through tall windows. And it was still under construction when we placed our offer to buy it. It got ready soon, and we took our first steps into our first lovely home in the spring of 2010. It felt like a dream come true, my heart singing, 

"Socho ke jheelon ka shehar ho

Lehron pe apna ek ghar ho
Hum jo dekhein sapne pyare
Sach hon saare bas aur kya..."

Our son brought a bundle full of joys to our lives right after the move, and both him and house aged together. New parents, both working, we took a couple of years just to set up proper routine. But the life in Hillsboro always allowed me time to go to farmers market, meet all friends, do my gardening activities, run, dance, do fun activities with my son, go to the library for story time, in spite of a full time challenging and rewarding career at Intel. 

In 5 years after living here, we had actually started cherishing the fruits, literally the fruits from my backyard, and veggies, apples, plums, cherries, strawberries, tomatoes, beans, peas, green onions, zucchinis, mint, basil, curry leaf, methi are some of my successful gardening ventures. Mentioning the failures include broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, and peppers. Someone teaching gardening lessons in the library told me once that gardening needs a lot of patience because you get only 1 growing season per year to make mistakes :). So true! Eventually, I learned my lessons, how to take care of outdoor and indoor plants, now I will only have fresh plants to decorate indoors of the house, after all, I successfully re-bloomed my orchid who survived with me for 3 years before I just gifted it to a friend in its full re-bloom. The trick is to give them occasional outdoor sunlight and atmosphere besides taking regular care of it like other plants. I call it my very own,"shock therapy". 

Besides gardening, my friends were my real treasure at Hillsboro. I stuck with my personality, knowing a lot of people, being nice and helpful to all of them, or at least that's what I think, but calling a few as my really good friends, who I would invite to my birthday parties (my very own secret, disclosed to the world today). I am a very reserved person by nature, but these close friends here made me open up to them. I relished all the girls nights with the bigger groups, but there were some episodes of heart to heart conversations with a few that I would never forget. We sort of all matured together, becoming new couples, homeowners, new parents, sharing the life's challenges and tips with each other. The close bonds that not only we but even our children have established, will now remain strong forever and we will be friends for life, no matter where in the world we go. Here are the videos that our friends created for us from the sweet memories of 8 years in Hillsboro.

I always thought that spending some quality time at my home sweet home will be my real vacations, but never got enough of it. To me, my home was no less than a resort, if I were not to do the chores of cleaning and cooking myself. Spending lovely evenings in the park right next to the home was so blissful. I am glad I got to spend some beautiful summer evenings with my little daughter in the park this year. And lucky we all got to relish some bountiful of cherries, strawberries, plums, and tomatoes from our backyard before leaving the home.
As fast as it happened for the move in, equally or faster was the move-out. Couldn't say goodbyes to the every corner, for there are tons of sweet memories to cherish, of home, of kids, of neighbors, friends, and family in that home. People have asked if we are selling the house, as the market is high, financially a good time to sell. But how can someone pay the prices of the emotional value that it has? When I miss my home sweet home, when I was leaving it behind to come to California, people asked me why crying for the house? How come I was becoming so materialistic? No, I am not!! It is not the walls that I am crying for, it is the sadness of detaching myself from the world that has those valuable precious years of our marriage, of our lives, of our children taking birth and entering home for the first time, it is the backyard where each plant and tree was sown in with tender love and care, that I didn't want to go away from so soon. I feel like I haven't had enough of it yet!! My little daughter didn't get a chance to establish any of her memories there. My son grew up with the house, with the whole neighborhood community that he calls home, all the friends who grew up with him there, I sense his sadness in leaving all that behind. He is not happy and doesn't know what to expect in the new place, and despite trying enough, I am not able to do a good job in raising his spirits. 

Well, life is the way it is. We are all little pegs in the big wheel of the Almighty. I am moving forward with no regrets, and with deep gratitude to God for keeping our family together, with hopes that it will be better for ours and our kids' future, with the dreams of having another home sweet home in the new place we go and with the sweet memories of the time spent in Hillsboro safely stashed in my heart forever!!