some thoughts on moving house

(long, rambling post warning.)

Having a house is pretty high on my list of dreams for the near future.

I want a house at the moment more than I want a baby.  And I love babies.

I've spent years dreaming about what I want it to look like, how I want to decorate it, et cetera.

I'll be content with a pretty white house with a blue door and shutters.

(I just googled "white house, blue shutters" and came up with a whole bunch of pictures of the notebook.  How cute.)

The night before we signed the contract for our first apartment, I cried.

It was a basement.  And I'd spent the last eight years (minus about eight months) living in basements.

It had wood paneling on most of its walls, concrete floors, and a shared laundry room.

I didn't want it.  

It wasn't going to be home.

"You will make it ours," Husband told me.

So we moved in.  It was close to school.  It had a nice yellow kitchen with a lot of counter space, but not a lot of cupboard space.  It had lots of shelves where we kept our pictures and books.  We had a cozy bedroom with space heaters and a Christmas tree night light for when husband had to work graveyard and I was all alone.

Unfortunately some conflicts with our upstairs neighbors got us thinking it was time to move. 

We found a new apartment.

We moved this week.

It has carpet.  It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms and quiet neighbors.  It has lots of storage space.  It was going to be perfect.  I couldn't wait to leave that awful basement.

Except.

As we packed up the last of our things today, I realized the basement wasn't awful at all.  I let it sink in how much it had grown on me, and it was a lot. 

I'm going to miss the wood panels on our walls.  I am going to miss our cozy bedroom, and how the closet lights were so finicky that I usually found what I needed and turned them off again before they even came on.  I am going to miss my yellow kitchen.  And I cried again.

Boxes are filling up our living room.  Our new house is a mess.  Our new house isn't home.

"You will make it ours," Husband told me.

I hope so.  But until then, I am hoping lots of snuggles and listening to the cd this dear friend made before he left on his mission will help it to feel that way.  

And someday, we'll have a place that can be ours forever, but until then, we will be okay.