Homechanging

We recently moved to a new home. I say new, but it was built in 1925, so I suppose I should say new to us. For the last week it seems like every day has been filled with packing and unpacking boxes, loading and unloading furniture, and trying to figure out which light switch turns the fan on and where the heck is the box with my deodorant?

It’s been hectic, but we are slowly getting settled and are very much in love with our new home. We’ve been so busy with the move that I haven’t had much time to process the fact that I’m sad to leave our little mustard house that we’ve called home for the last 4+ years. 

As we were getting one final load the other night, Tyler paused and looked around the dim, empty living room and after a minute or so of silence said, “I don’t want to go.” The last glimmer of daylight was lazily peeking through the front window onto the wooden floors, coated with dust after a long few days of moving. I put down the box in my arms and looked around for the first time in days. “Me neither,” I said quietly, “let’s put everything back!” He hugged me as we both laughed because we knew it was time for this season to be over so that a new one could begin.

“We met right here in this room,” I said walking over to the front door. “This is where I walked in…” 

“… and I was sitting right here,” he finished the sentence. 

“And remember when we moved all of the furniture in here to practice our wedding dance?” I asked. “And when you turned the whole room into a massive blanket fort for my birthday?” 

As the sunlight began to fade for the day, we walked through the house standing in dark, empty rooms that would appear common and quiet to anyone else in the world. But we knew they were not empty. When we looked around, we could see years of magical memories – evidence of a chapter in our lives we will remember fondly. Mundane moments to be tucked away in boxes with the rest of our belongings and carried with us to our new home.

The place we were standing when I told Tyler we were pregnant. 

The crack in the window where I playfully threw a burnt blueberry muffin at him and missed. 

The corner in the nursery where I sat and cried because I had trouble breastfeeding.

The scratch on the floor from when we moved the bookshelf he built for me.

The dent in the gutter I created trying to park Tyler’s truck.

The deck where we grilled burgers with friends on so many summer nights.

The place I was sitting when Tyler told me my Mawmaw passed away.

The dining room where we had breakfast for dinner too many times to count.

The door we walked through when we brought our baby girl home for the first time.

Soon someone new will live here. They will not know what this place has meant to us, but I hope it means just as much to them. I hope they fill the halls with laughter and burn dinners in the kitchen and have to order pizza instead and have hard conversations on the nursery floor. I hope they drink wine on the deck and listen to the frogs croak late into the night. Maybe they’ll use the living room to build their own forts and make up their own dances. Have friends over and use air mattresses to squish as many guests into that tiny house as humanly possible. 

Buy a Christmas tree that’s too tall and have to chop 3 feet off right there in the den. When they walk outside to check the mail, I hope they wave to Maria, the kind lady who lives next door and makes an excellent pet sitter, and check on 92-year-old Ms. Joy across the street. 

Mostly I hope they feel at home. Like it is their safe place. A place they long for at the end of a hard workday. Where they can love and be loved and know that they belong. That’s what this house has been for me.

Tyler and I met in that living room as two single strangers and are leaving as a family of three. Our little home on McRee has been a gift, and I hope it will be just that to its next occupants.

I’m excited to make memories in our new home. To grow into the space and fill the rooms with friends and family over the years. To figure out how to work the oven and stop opening the wrong drawer every time I need a spoon. And I’m excited for someone else to make their own memories in that special, old yellow house on McRee.

Also, we are renting it out so holla if you want to be that person.