"Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home?
For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back."
It's still nearly a daily occurrence here- at some point, Sky and I will look at each other with slight awe, and say, "We have a house."
Neither of us thought we would, or at least as soon. "Soon" is a funny word to use after we've spent our whole relationship in rentals, but it still seemed so far off. We had tired of our apartment several years earlier- the neighbor below who made us miserable and unable to feel comfortable letting our guard down in our own space, let alone having people over. The backyard that was a story below us and was shared by the other tenants, as well as the buildings beside us, and offered no privacy. Yet the apartment was mostly big enough, and in a good area, so we kept to the status quo.
But the old farmer couple who owned our building sold it to a big, impersonal company in town, who promptly raised the rent. That, coupled with our itch for our own, tiny piece on this earth gave us the motivation to at least look. We thought we'd save up for a year or more. We thought we'd look for a year or more. We ended up looking for only a couple months, and though there were a few houses we had nearly purchased, I can't say that I loved or necessarily even liked most of them. We were settling, and I knew it, but we could make it work and be grateful.
And then, we saw this house. Our house. The gorgeous wooden floors. The pretty staircase. The backyard with the swingset that seemed destined for Millie and Walter. The attic that could finally store all of Sky's military gear. The thought of parking our cars in an actual garage. The thought of living in peace, without noise from other people or worrying about disrupting them. After we had seen it all, I sat down on their couch and announced that I wanted this home. So did Sky. I cried every time I thought about moving, stunned that we could be so blessed, and I cried again as I watched my children finally have a place to play outside. It is definitely more expensive than our apartment, and comes with a different kind of stress as new, first time homeowners. There are sacrifices to be made. But though the process was harder than I thought it would be, it was so full of God's grace that I know we are meant to be here. The moment we got the keys, on my birthday no less, we drove straight over and did something we could never do in our apartment- we turned on music, and we had a dance party, the kids and I jumping up and down, spinning in circles until we were all dizzy and out of breath.
We walked around to the neighbor lady's house yesterday, the deep, green ivy creeping close to the edge of the sidewalk. She already calls hello to Millie and Walter. It's the kind of neighborhood my heart has always loved most- big, shady trees planted decades ago, houses that were built during big wars or near them, a different look to each. Some have window boxes, currently filled with small pumpkins and mums. Some have grand, wrought-iron gates, and others have idyllic white picket fences. There are tiny bungalows, cottages that look as if they belong in England, and even some large painted ladies with intricate details framing wide porches. American flags wave slowly at dusk, when the charm of it all glows its very brightest. There are cozy side streets with globed lights, and when you squint a little, you can almost picture the old cars that would have lined them years before. All of it makes me swoon.
Our home was built in the early 1940s. I love to picture it, smelling of new paint, and think about what it would have been like to be the first housewife here. Did she sit on the back steps and wave to her kids playing in the yard, her laundry swaying on the clothesline? Did she plant flowers here? Were her thoughts always on the war, and did she have someone she loved in harm's way? Did she sit at a desk at night, writing him letters by the fireplace? Was there a new baby nine months after his return? This is why I love old houses; there are stories here, some possibly grand, or just as ordinary as my own. They're woven into these walls, into this Midwestern soil, and the history of this town. We are a part of that history now, and though it's likely nothing that most people would ever notice, the deed to this land bears our names now, and we'll carry it though the decades to the next owners, who hopefully cherish what came before them, too.
There are a hundred quotes I've read telling me that home isn't a place. It's a feeling, or it's who you're with, etc. It's everything but a sweet little house with a long driveway for riding bikes, a yard for finding butterflies, and bedrooms nestled close together. I'm sure all those writers meant well.
Tonight, though, I have to disagree with them. Home is right here, at last.
