The other night as I was bouncing Sawyer to sleep I said to
Jeffrey, “I love our home.” To this he replied, “I thought you hated it here.”
And it’s true, (at first I thought a good title for this post would be “From
Hellhole to Home,” but that sounded too harsh…) for the past 12 months that we’ve
lived here I’ve found plenty of things to grumble about.
But I know why. We
moved so quickly and unpacked so hurriedly and became so busy that we never
settled in to this apartment. With
mishmash décor on the walls and furniture placed anywhere it would fit, the
feeling just wasn’t right.
I read once the account of an older man reflecting on his
days as a military man in Vietnam.
His battalion moved around so frequently that he never took the time to
unpack his things. He was miserable, until he realized why: he didn’t have a
home or the stability a home brings. So from that day on, no matter whether his
troop would be stationed somewhere for a week or a few months, he unpacked his belongings
and set up a home for himself.
This story resonated with me because I deeply value having a home; a
place of peace and safety where we can feel cozy and secure in our
love. We’ve never lived in a truly “nice”
apartment, choosing instead to rent well below our incomes so we’d
have money to save and to spend. However, I’ve always worked hard to make our
apartments comfortable, cute, and clean. Every
apartment, that is, except this one.
So last week I rolled up my sleeves and rearranged, redecorated, and
refurbished. To me, it’s not just
putting pictures on walls or frivolously spending on cutesy this and unnecessary that, it’s
the process of establishing a home. It’s
putting down our roots and making our mark on life. It’s creating stability for our family. It’s walking in to a space where you want to
stay. It's thinking to yourself when you leave that you can’t wait to
return. It's one day, when there’s a
moving truck parked outside, loaded and ready to go, being able to say not
only, we lived here, but we loved here.
And that's how a house becomes a home.
Photos of our third love nest will be forthcoming, hopefully soon after we return from our vacation (!!)
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