making a house a home

This last weekend we went up to Idaho for a few days. We went fishing with Dave's brother, celebrated Jack's birthday, stayed up way too late, and went to church in our old Rupert ward. It was wonderful.

By the time we were driving home last night a vague homesickness set in. Usually after a trip, the drive home feels like a relief, but this time it didn't. Our walls are still bare. I still haven't unpacked my boxes of books (something that always makes me feel more at home) and it is strange that my calendar is relatively empty. It doesn't quite feel like home yet. It will. I love our new neighborhood and our house is great. We got a new couch that I really love. But I am still figuring out where to put things and how to organize stuff and all of that. It takes time. I know it does.

I had a dream the other night that we were done with residency and it was time to move again and I couldn't believe it had gone so fast and I felt like we had just barely moved and I couldn't bring myself to do it again. It has been an exhausting journey, even though it is exciting. Transitions can be hard.

The night before we left Vermont I lay our our little cot in our mostly empty house. Four years before I had done the same thing, and our empty house felt full of promise and hope for the future. This time, though all of our stuff was packed tightly (very, very tightly) in our moving truck, the house didn't feel empty at all. It felt full of ghosts. The ghosts of our memories that filled the house to the brim. Memories of Christmas mornings and lazy Sunday afternoons and the smell of lilacs through the windows and dinners with friends and so many other wonderful things that happened in that house. It was a four year process of making that house a home. And I cried.

The same with happen with this house. We will fill it with so many memories that in a few short years when we pack it up I will cry. And it will feel like home.

May 2014 - Last day

July 2010 - First day in our new home