The House

It’s July 5th, 2019. I wake up in a new place, too early, and too eager to sleep any longer. I want to unpack. Yesterday I’d been in one house, and today we live in a different house. I am surprised by how quickly I have lost sentimental feelings for the old house we lived in for such a long time. When we first arrived there, the children were in elementary school and the house became a place of personal healing for me. We left Texas during a difficult time in my marriage, and the future was uncertain.  I no longer loved my husband, after a painful betrayal. I was leaving my job, friends, brother, sister, and parents back in Texas for an unknown life in Arizona. An unsure life, but a hopeful adventure. I needed to go somewhere new. Although I love my family deeply, their religious judgements in my life were stifling. Not only did I not feel free to simply be myself, but I constantly felt I was justifying my existence because I was different. Different from my family and also different from those in Church, who were full of “should”. Growing up, I’d been made to feel that different meant bad. Conformity meant good. I understood that something was wrong for God did not intend his example of love to cause people to make others feel bad. In the life and that marriage I was living, I felt love draining from me every day with no end in sight. 

The adventure in Arizona was everything and I began to allow myself to breath. We had a swimming pool and the kids made friends right next door. I made the difficult decision to separate from my husband and began to feel love coming back. The cold fog that had seized my heart for more than a decade was dissipating. Arizona was a new place; a place to be me. The house was part of me growing into the woman I am, a phase which experienced many delays in my twenties as a young mother in a dysfunctional situation. I learned slowly to trust and be vulnerable, habits that I did not yet have. I remarried. I went to college as I had always wanted, but had been denied. I outgrew my first career and began a new career that I excelled in and became successful. I watched my children grow into teenagers, and create their foundations. I made new friends, tried new things, and formed bonds of friendship with my children when they left home as adults. I lost my mother, our dear pet Pug, and watched my husband go through trauma surgery and recovery. The old house saw and heard over eighteen formative years.

This morning I let it go. I honor my old house. It was a good house and I loved it. Now I will unpack my new house. The fresh air of new feelings, creating new stories, and planning future adventures. Healing will never end, but I have made friends with it. We are all getting better all the time. I know each house has a role in our life’s story and this new house joins my journey today.