Wherever You Are

Well, my dear, 10 years (and 1.5 kids) later, we finally bought a house.

Technically, I bought a house for you (for us)--my job having paid for it all.  But that's beside the point.  Who cares about houses?  A house is not a home.

Do you remember our first home?

We were poor as church mice, just married, and oh so ridiculously young.

Remember the awful smelling elevator that brought us to our third-floor apartment--that made me always turn blue holding my breath?  Elevator aside, I loved that space.  There was nothing special about it, but for the fact that you were there.

Our second home was on the opposite side of the continent, in a "charming"  and historic New England flat, again on the third floor.

We found out that "charming" and historic meant no elevators, no air conditioning and old plumbing and radiators hissing steam.

But we got to experience 4 real seasons in all their glory and realized only Fall and Spring are truly glorious.

Our third home was back where it all began for us--another move back to the other coast.

This time, no stairs!  A standalone unit in a wonderful complex--surrounded by urban blight and pollutants from 3 separate recycling plants.  Ah, home sweet home--but not literally as the rotten stench from EBMUD, our waste treatment center, daily wafted by.

It felt so familiar to walk down Telegraph and eat at Durant Square.  But so different...being on the other side of the looking-glass of time and memory.

So much happened in this last home...so much good stuff.

And now here we are, on the threshold of another home--a house in the suburbs, 5 minutes from our choice elementary school, like the fuddy-duddy traditionalists we never wanted to be.  Like our parents before us.

Months of scouring real-estate listings, weeks of closing transactions, 5 trips to the paint store, 8 shades of yellow samples, 235 boxes, and 3 contractors later...here we are.  I can't believe we're moving in tomorrow!

I hope our new house will be a place full of people--big and little.  I hope our new house will be full of grace, mercy, kindness, and forgiveness.  And full of food.  Food-food and soul-food.  A well used place.

But I know what's coming next--chaos, upheaval, sleep-deprivation, frustration, anxiety and all those other wonderful things that come with a new baby and new home-ownership.  Lord have mercy!

At least we'll be together and we'll be home.  Because home is wherever you are.