Moving on (again)

In a little over a month, my husband and I are moving. We bought a house (!) with two staircases, and a yard, and a porch, and a clawfoot tub (!!).

Yes, I’m really excited about the tub. As soon as I saw it, I knew this house was perfect for us–which may be a slight exaggeration, but in all reality it probably comprises at least 60% percent of the reason I’m so excited to move in.

Once we got inside, it took about ten minutes for us to decide we wanted to buy the house, with its original wood floors and french doors and attic suite bedroom. To some that probably seems a bit fast, especially since it was only the third house we’d seen in our search. But we’d been praying about finding a home for months–and if I know anything about prayer, it’s that it builds confidence. We were confident God had led us to this house.

And, as Zac and I have been saying for the last couple months of looking, almost anything would be a step up from our current situation.

For the past year we’ve been living in a tiny studio apartment. Tiny isn’t the bad part–in fact I think it’s been pretty cozy (although working from home here has started to feel a little like being trapped belowdecks in a fairly spacious pirate ship cabin).

There are no windows, just a sliding glass door through which the sunlight occasionally finds its way.

The kitchen has about two feet of counter space. The one time I’ve baked a non-batter bread in this apartment, I had to knead it on my kitchen table. There are no drawers in which to put silverware, like a sane person–instead, we’ve spend a year snatching our utensils out of a small and overworked caddie that I bought at Walmart four years ago. The sink is crammed between the counter and the wall, with barely space enough for one person and their elbows.

And, two of four burners on our ancient stove absolutely refuse to produce any heat.

My frustrations with the kitchen have been manageable, but it’s time to spread out. I want room to dance in my kitchen, because dancing is sometimes the only thing that makes the tedious task of baking bearable.

And I want burners that work!

I want my own walls to put nails in, and finally hang up the art that’s been collecting dust in my very accommodating mother’s office closet. I want a toilet seat lid that’s made of ceramic, not flimsy plastic. I want three–no, four–storage closets,and space for an extra bookshelf (or six). I want to be able to walk into my bathroom without worrying about stepping on cat litter.

More than anything, though, I am so ready to be free of this apartment and the strange, ever-changing smells it greets us with every day. Soon we will leave all the accumulated fumes of thirty neighbors behind, and simply live among stenches we have created ourselves–or can at least identify.

I will not miss this apartment, though I am grateful for the time I’ve shared here with people I love. This tiny, half-functioning kitchen is where I learned to cook brashly and without regard for consequences. This bathroom is where I watched my kitten grow up, by measuring her against the size of the sink. This table is where we’ve shared dinner and board games with lovely friends. This is the place where I packed a suitcase for our honeymoon. This is the home where our marriage began.

Thinking about moving on from this apartment reminds me of all the times I’ve moved on in the past five years. Some of those places I miss, like the suite-style dorm I shared with three friends my sophomore year. That suite had the best windows of any place I’ve lived, besides my parents’ house.

Other places I was happy to leave. I even wrote a joyful good-riddance ode to my freshman dorm, which happened to be in the basement (worst windows of all), for this very blog. It felt so good to leave and never want to come back to that bug-filled place. Like a much-needed haircut.

Neither I nor my husband have stayed in the same place for more than nine months during the last several years. But now we’re looking forward to being in a new place–one we can fit more than five people into, where we can put down some tentative roots, and hope to stay awhile, rather than looking for the next waystation.

Will our new home be quiet, devoid of humming machinery and strange thumping sounds, the source of which we’ve never been able to deduce? I may actually miss the air conditioner here and its lively buzz that comes to interrupt my thoughts. But then again, maybe not.

Our new home will not be perfect, but it will be ours, and that’s what makes this change so exciting. New challenges of home-ownership– like having two toilets to clean, and yard work, and wooden siding–await. It’s time to move on.