Still, that's what Jason and I did over Memorial Day weekend. Some weeks earlier, we'd signed papers and officially bought our first house, a nice 3/2 in a neighborhood we both adored. The downpayment alone was probably more money than we'd ever seen or dreamed of, but everything came together, the stars were aligned just right by God and our dream of homeownership became a reality with a cashier's check and about 5000 signatures. We'd been tired of sharing walls with other people, tired of apartment life, tired of the asphalt parking lot view just outside our bedroom window, and we were ready to get the hell out of Dodge.
When it came time to leave the apartment and start moving into the new house, we were eager. Packing all those boxes even seemed (slightly) easier than in times past. Stuff trickled over from the apartment to the house in small carloads during the week, and then the big move brought all the big furniture, including the infamous bookcase, to our new home. We even had some time to paint the nursery for our son before moving all two pieces of furniture in there (these pictures are kinda dark - more will follow in future posts, brighter and hopefully with furniture included):
Finally, the day came this past Friday to turn in the keys to our old apartment and leave for good. We'd just spent the past two days painting our bedroom and the living room back to "antique white" (per the apt complex rules), wondering why we'd ever had the urge to decorate in any way, particularly using dark-hued paint. We were tired, sore, and ready to be done with commuting back and forth from one place to the other. So saying good-bye to apartment life should have been easy, right?
Maybe not as easy as I'd hoped.
Handing in the keys meant closing the door on 3 of the best, richest years of my life. This was, after all, the place where "you and me" became "us", where Jason and I began our journey of married life together. We'd learned each others' rhythms and quirks living together within those walls. We'd cooked and eaten countless meals together in that cramped galley kitchen. We'd welcomed within those walls the cat that would go down as the Most Photographed and Most Spoiled Animal in History - a title she still carries proudly to this day, I might add. We dreamed big dreams together there, including one day moving out and owning our own house. We'd dreamed of expanding our family there, and it was in that apartment we'd found out we were pregnant for the first time. And a second time. And, finally, a third and good and "sticking" time.
I'll be the first to shed sentimentality about objects and remind you that memories are made and held together in the heart and mind, not in bare walls and empty rooms. But even I found it hard to say goodbye, because Jason and I called that place home for over 3 years, and closing the door for the final time on "home", even to then head to our new home, was more difficult than I expected. It was God's generous provision for us, and it had served us well, even when we yearned for more space, less noise, easier commutes, and investing our money rather than throwing it away each month on rent. It was the place I'd longed to get back to after a long shift at work, after battling a rough time in Orlando traffic, even (secretly) after vacationing away or enjoying a night out with friends.
I know that someone else, maybe another set of young newlyweds, is preparing to call that apartment home soon. It's not our home anymore, and as I sit in my half-renovated bedroom typing this, I do feel very much at home in our new house. I'm excited to bring my son to our home from the hospital in a few months. I'm a little sad he won't ever know the home we had there in that apartment, but he will have his own memories, his own happy times, in these rooms here. And I'm particularly excited to be here with Jason, 3 wonderful years under our belt together as husband and wife, and make many more years of wonderful memories within these new walls that have now inherited an old, familiar name: HOME.
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