We’ve moved. A lot.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining I actually like moving. I like packing, I like purging, and I simply love reorganizing my kids’ closets as well as my own. Chris’ closet is on its own. Oh, and I simply love a new space in which to rearrange furniture and decorate (just ask my husband who comes home to a house full of rearranged furniture for no reason other than I had an undeniable urge to switch things up).
But while the prospect of moving always excites me, I’m never quite prepared for how emotional I’ll get once our house is packed and looks so empty. As a mother of young children, I am entirely too aware of how precious this time is while they are young, and like most mothers, can’t get in and out of a cafe to grab coffee without some well meaning mother of grown children reminding me, “these days are the good days, sweetheart, and they go so quick.”
So with this mantra in the back of my mind, I look at an empty house that was once so alive with a flurry of activity. I remember pancake batter all over the floor, little boy underwear strewn about, tears being shed while we contemplate a trip to the emergency room, and the precious corner that held the blocks – and my boys – for hours on end each and every day. And now, with everything again being packed into boxes, it feels like I am saying goodbye to those memories.
More acutely, it feels like I am closing the door on a piece of my little ones’ childhood that I will never ever again get to savor.
Many people know what it is like to close the door on one house in which they have lived 5-10 years, and say goodbye to the memories of half a decade that are now wrapped in a neat little bow. But because we tend to move regularly, our memories are scattered, choppy, and it doesn’t feel good. Each goodbye is an attempt to wrap up the memories of a house that held us for so short a period, yet encompassed such poignant memories. The condo where we were first married and brought home our first babies. Then the house where we brought home our third baby. Then the houses where each little one took their first steps and the houses on whose steps we took the obligatory first day of school pictures.
I write this as I contemplate closing yet one more chapter on our little lives. But this time is different because we aren’t just bouncing to a new Chicago neighborhood, as we’ve done so many times before. We are moving across the country. It feels even more scattered, Like, God, are we ever going to settle down? Will we ever have a driveway? Will we ever watch the neighbor kids grow up and be invited to a block party?
And then God whispers in my ear, ever so quietly. “Booooooooooring.”
And I know that God has given a heart to accompany my husband’s, and that we are both craving more adventures before we settle down. Like a flood, I feel relief that we are off to start a new chapter in this crazy life. And I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude that we are bringing with us the most important things that any of those four walls held. Plenty of spilled pancake batter, tears, and block-building skills are coming with us.
