Menu
Settling in, one more time
Moving around a lot as a child gave me a lot of false impressions about life. I grew up believing that everyone moved frequently and those who didn't were, well, odd.
When I would meet someone who had never moved, never been the "new kid" at school, I was amazed at their story. In my world everyone came from "someplace else."
This caused a bit of a dilemma in the early years of my marriage, and no doubt contributed a great deal to my wanderlust, which resulted in our all too frequent sojourns, the Wichita fiasco comes to mind, as does our brief stay in Eureka, Nev., and our ill-fated journey to Albion, Iowa.
Not only was I somewhat prone to "taking off, bag and baggage" to distant places, I was also the driving force behind our neighborhood moves during the early years of our marriage. It's almost as if an interior alarm would go off every six to eight months and there I'd be, packing boxes, checking the want-ads for a new place.
Back then, there really wasn't a practical reason to move. We didn't need to live closer to our work, we didn't need more room, and we certainly didn't need the added expenses of first month's rent and damage deposit. I just had a compelling need to move.
Danny, as always, was very patient with me -- the first few times anyway -- probably chalking it up to that whole "feminine mystique" so much in vogue at the time. Gamely, he'd go along with it, though it caused him no small amount of difficulty in many ways.
After all, he had grown up in the same house for all of his life. He went to the same schools, had lifelong friends and slept in the same bedroom night after night.
Until I came along and introduced him to the joys of cardboard boxes.
It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I finally settled down. Moving just Danny, Ben and I, although somewhat complicated, was still manageable. However, when Lisa and Patrick entered the scene, it was a whole different kettle of fish. Our "temporary" move to Brighton lasted nearly 20 years, and we moved the kids only once in all of those years. And that was a very practical move. We sold the three bedroom mobile home we had owned for 10 years and lost ourselves in a four-bedroom, two up, two down, ranch style home with no wheels underneath it.
The kids all went to the same schools, have lifelong friends and still go back to the "old neighborhood" whenever they're in town.
Well, we've done it again. As I write, I am surrounded by boxes. None of them completely empty, some of them not even opened yet. A box spring and mattress adorn one wall of the den until we figure out how to get it downstairs, and every other room has at least one box, if not more, waiting patiently for time or need to be its undoing.
This was a very practical move and I hope never to repeat the experience. After paying rents for more than five years, and enjoying a certain coziness in a one bedroom apartment for four years, we are once again homeowners, with a tax bill due and payable every year. It seems I have finally found the "country" home my heart has longed for since I was six, and it's right here in town. The oldest house in the neighborhood, we are assured of plenty of "honey-do" work in the years to come. We keep "losing" each other as we traverse what is to us a wide terrain and a warren of rooms.
It has been an exciting month, with daily -- sometimes hourly -- ups and downs. Our hopes were raised, then dashed, and raised again, until finally, everything came together at the last minute to accomplish a blessing we didn't expect, didn't dare ask for, and could never deserve. It is the perfect place to live out and love in the days of waiting for the coming King.
Perhaps my penchant for wanderlust, somewhat settled when motherhood did its mysterious work, was settled for good when I fell in love with Jesus and this promise:
"In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am." John 14:2, 3 (NIV)