You may have heard that we moved again. Yeah, this is our seventh house. Is there anybody else out there who can even say that? Anyone? Bueller.... Bueller...
So, I've hereby decided that owning/living in seven different houses (that's just as an adult and not counting apartments or mobile homes) qualifies me as an expert on several things, amongst them knowing how long it takes for a house to feel like a home.
Now, I completely subscribe to the notion that my home is where my husband and kids are. (Or maybe I just have to in order to keep my sanity at this point.) But, that's not the same as feeling at home in a new house.
See, when you first move in, there are boxes everywhere. Even if your husband's new company pays movers to do all the packing, loading, and unloading... Even if you have family or friends that help unpack... And especially if you jump right into your new job with barely a long weekend to start unpacking... ...it takes time to even look like a house a family lives in rather than a temporary storage unit.
You miss your old home. You ache for its familiarity. You miss your
old friends, and hurt for your kids missing their old friends, too.
Because even though you keep in touch, it's not the same as living down
the street, or right next door.
You drive to an
unfamiliar office in an unfamiliar town, not even the one you are now
living in. Your husband drives to a different unfamiliar town, but he
has a three-month head start on you in feeling like he belongs here.
Blinds are put up on windows. The stacked boxes come down and get moved around (please don't look in my basement for another year) until there are some rooms without boxes in them at all. The wall decorations get hung. The kids set up their bedrooms just so. Maybe you paint a few rooms just before or soon after moving in. You start meeting a few of the neighbors. The kids get signed up for activities and start school.
And then one evening you go to a band boosters meeting, and suddenly, you've made a friend for yourself, two for your son, and one for your daughter, all in one little family. Your son is asking to ride his bike down the street to meet another friend from summer camp and after school care. Your daughter is regularly texting a few girls again, and talking regularly about certain people from school and church. Your husband has a work friend over to help him work on a car and have dinner with us. You are meeting a lady from work to work out once a week at the local rec center. You're just about to the point that you'd consider her a friend as well.
Driving to work doesn't feel so unfamiliar anymore. You're considering adding some of your coworkers as friends on Facebook. You trust the neighbor to get your son from the bus if he forgets to go to after school care on your work in the office days. You walk around the house without a slightly lost feeling. The rooms look and feel like they are yours. You can sit down to read or watch TV in the evening rather than collapsing in bed from constantly unpacking/cleaning/decluttering. And the couch feels right sitting where it is again. It feels right to sit at the table eating dinner.
You might even start to forget little things about your old house. In the least, you think more often of the things that were wrong with it and are better in this house.
You tuck your son in at night, hug your teenage daughter goodnight, and it just feels like home. It's been almost four months. You're home.
No comments:
Post a Comment