Changes, Fast and Proud

Erin and I decided to really buy a house on Monday, January 6. We looked at 3 houses on Sunday, January 11. We put an offer in on one of those houses on the 13th. Our offer got declined on the 14th. We looked at another house on the 15th. No good. We went away for the weekend. We looked at a condo and a house on Monday the 19th. We kept them on the long list and kept on looking. On the 20th I looked at the outside of a condo during the day. That night we saw the inside. And later that night we put in an offer. On the evening of the 22nd the offer was countered. We accepted the counter nearly on the spot, citing devastation at the thought of "losing" the home if we countered and got rejected or another offer got accepted. Friday, January 24 revealed that there were multiple interested parties regarding the condo we'd just signed the agreement on. January 29th, 6 days after we accepted their counter, we opened escrow. Concept to reality (at least the reality of being in escrow) was 23 days. Probably closer to 60 days, come moving day, but all in all, this is happening pretty quickly.

I took Jackson over to the house last week to show him his new yard. I watched him frolic up and down the grass and walkway and thought, he's going to take this move much better than the cats. Sly and Killer have made 8 moves with me over the last 9 1/2 years. It takes Sly couple of days to adjust, AKA lying around like he owns the place, while Killer sometimes doesn't come out from beneath the bed but to eat and relieve herself for the first few days. And then there's me.

My adjustment period has come to be considerably longer than Killer's. While I don't generally hide myself under the bed for days on end, my mind is surely not all there in the rooms as I saunter about, putting this blanket in that cabinet, that dish on this shelf, and so on. I think about the places I've lived, the people I've lived with and how I've changed over the years.

My best friend and I were roommates in one of my first apartments. By the end of moving day I was completely unpacked, my clothes and personal belongings put away neatly in my room. The kitchen was unpacked, dishes put away, wine glasses hanging from an IKEA rack I'd put up at some point during the day. We put the microwave rack together and had a friend come over to put the TV rack together, in exchange for a beer or two (of which he gave a capful to Sly, who did not hold his alcohol well). This was how I thought all moves would go from there on out.

But not every move gets to be because you want it. The next move was because my best friend got engaged and moved into a house with her fiance. Not being able to afford the apartment on my own, I moved. Further from family, further from work, and smaller in size. I hadn't learned the art of downsizing at that point. The next move was into my grandfather's house after Grandma died to help him transition. Then I tried to save my relationship and moved from the back bedroom of my grandfather's house into a 2-bedroom apartment a few miles down the road. It was a great townhouse, only problem was it didn't fix my relationship. So when she moved out two months after we moved in, it was like I had moved again. I stared at empty spots on the walls and shelves where her things once were, and did not fill those spaces for quite some time.  A far cry from the neat and tidy, everything-in-its-place-where-it-belongs just a few years prior. 

I've since recovered, and two moves later I'm ready to move again. Finally it's a move I'm making not due to blind and fumbling circumstances that I've allowed to be beyond my control, but as a result of sitting down and making an adult, conscious decision to do so. 

I don't expect that we'll be living in boxes for even a week, but I'm not going to stress myself out with getting everything unpacked on moving day. I'm going to savor the experience of moving into our first home and all the little things that come with it. I'll bask in the aroma of fresh appliances and newly laid tile. I'll rollick in lavender and vanilla tubs, knowing that we are all those tubs have ever known. And we'll let the feeling of being real, live home owners sink in slowly but surely as we make the house truly ours, with our experiences and memories and excitement and blunders.

I've spent the last 10 years acquiring things, and I seem to be transitioning from acquiring things to acquiring meaningful  things. Not just things, but people as well. I don't mean to say that all the things and people prior have been meaningless, but that moving forward I'm making conscious decisions to allow only people and things into my life that bring me joy. I'm just pretty excited about living my life in a manner that I'm proud of. Not for anyone else's sake, but for my own.