Home Sweet Home

Right now I am sitting at my computer, typing this entry while all around me, a team of movers pack up my life into cardboard boxes.  I am not allowed to pack anything (company policy) so I am sitting here trying to make use of my time.

On the radio this morning, I heard the song "The House That Built Me" (Miranda Lambert).  I love that song and it got me thinking about "home" and what that really means.  I'm not sure if "Home is where the heart is" or if it's the house one grows up in or any other quick definition.  For me, I've lived in many houses in my short 31 years and I have at one point or another, referred to all of them as "Home."  More importantly, I currently cannot call anywhere home, which feels very weird.

Whenever Dan and I move (first from Milton to Buckley, and now Buckley to Moses Lake) I get all sentimental and nostalgic.  I mourn the loss of a home where a baby's growing journey took place and then later returned for the first time...first Ellie in Milton and then Kate here in Buckley.  There is nothing like bringing a new baby "home" to make it feel just like that. And somehow it feels like the memories born in that space will forever stay there. Like even though you can remember them, when you move you also somehow leave them behind. To me, it's a kind of wonderful and beautiful sadness.

Our Milton house was tiny and a bit of a fixer-upper when we bought it.  Dan and I were newlyweds and returned to our first home to unpack our wedding gifts and begin to make a life within those walls.  We brought our first pet, Jaxie, home from the pound.  I had my first teaching job teaching high school. A couple years later, we brought Ellie home from the hospital. Dan was awarded Trooper of the Year.  Ellie took her first steps, said her first words, and became a little person.  Our love and life grew in that space for five years and until we had more love and life than the walls could hold. We then moved to Buckley in 2009.  Dan's job changed once again, Ellie started preschool, and I gave birth to our beautiful Kate.  I have watched our girls learn to be sisters and friends here and Dan and I have learned to be parents to more than one little girl.  Once again, I feel a wonderful and beautiful sadness as I think of leaving our "home" here in Buckley.

I guess that means that we are doing something right.  If we were leaving and I did not feel a loss, then I would think the years spent in those spaces were not filled up with a life well lived.  It would mean that the houses were only houses, and never homes filled with the love and laughter of two precious little girls learning to be people and the joy and pride of their parents as they watched them grow.

And I cannot help but wonder how Ellie and Kate will feel...where will they call home? Which house will have "built" them or will they, like me, feel like "home" was made up of more than one place?  I guess only time will tell.

I do feel a bit sad, like we are leaving behind something more than bricks and stone and wood and drywall but excited too, that we have new spaces to fill with life and love and laughter.  I wonder if (in this life) we will ever arrive at a place that we will call home for good.  I think I would like that immensely.  It would be nice to put roots into the ground and be there many years later to see them grow into something great.  Either way, I look forward to filling space and time with my husband and our lovely little girls, and know that as long as they are with me, life will be sweet and I will feel home.

A few sweet memories from our first two homes...

Milton

Buckley

Ellie and Daddy getting Kate's room ready in Buckley