Moving On Up

You’re either all for moving, or you’re not. There’s never an in between. As a kid, I found myself heartbroken at every move we made. Nowadays, I daydream about the future house we’ll have and how we’ll be able to give our son a yard and a little sibling. I yearn for a large kitchen and spacious rooms to fill up with curtains and 70’s-inspired side tables. These were things I absolutely never thought of when Iwas a teen. In fact, my siblings will tell you how much we all hated it when mom took us to the local Home Goods and we would stare at the endless furniture for hours. The idea of getting nice stuff to fill the house was boring to me.

My, how times have changed.

We moved into a tiny studio way back before the baby came. We weren’t too worried about space at first. I mean, the kid was only going to be about 2 feet long. How much space was he really going to need?

Well, it turns out he needed a lot more than we thought. As he got older, he needed more and more space. The toy pile kept getting bigger and his clothes didn’t fit in the little rack we’d gotten for all his things. After he turned a year old, he needed the same amount of space as us. It was getting crowded and the hunt for a new apartment was dismal.

You would think it wouldn’t be too much to ask for a reasonably priced space for a small family. You would definitely be wrong.

No matter what, we were constantly sacrificing some aspect of what we needed. A second bedroom was either out of the question or traded for the safety of the neighborhood. The washing machine in unit was a coin toss that hadn’t landed yet. We were about to settle for an apartment in the middle of the city that was barely bigger than our old place and still had the original washer and dryer from the 60’s. How it lasted that long, I didn’t know. I did know that this was the best it was going to get for us out here. So we applied, got our hopes up, and got denied. We were so crushed, but we had to keep up the search.

Then this miracle landed in our lap.

One of our friends has family that rent out part of a duplex. We had heard about it a little less than a year before, but things ended up not working out at the time. This time around, we approached the house with caution. It was almost too good to be true! Two bedrooms, two bath, a yard, and room for a washer and dryer? Sign me up! Not to mention it’s a beautiful neighborhood with great schools.

So, we applied and waited anxiously for an answer. Over that weekend, we daydreamed of what life would be like in that house. We could see the Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling and the tree across from the fire place. We saw birthdays and Thanksgivings where people could actually come over and celebrate with us. We moved in without ever packing a box.

I thought a lot about how things changed for me. I went from a hungry, community college student with no car and no money. I had even less friends and I always felt... alone. I was on my own in the world for the first time, but nothing was more lonely than at the end of the day when I knocked out to the sound of something on the screen. Now—still in my twenty-somethings—I’m this brand new invention that I never saw myself becoming; and yet, I feel the most sure of myself than I ever have.

And so, the weekend came to a close. We went about our Monday routine when we got the call that the house was ours! We couldn’t keep from jumping up and telling everyone within a five mile radius. The boxes just keep piling up, but nothing can stop us from moving into our new place. I’ve got so many plans and I can’t wait to share them with you all!