We are in between houses. We sold our beloved but much too large home in May and moved to a temporary house that is stacked with furniture and boxes as we wait for our new house to be ready.
On any given day we utter these words many times, often in frustration:
“I can’t find_____________ or Do you know where this is? or have you seen this?”
It is temporary madness.
We do keep our eyes on what is coming and remember this is just a pause in our adventure but I do wish I didn’t have one each of three pairs of shoes, the mates having gone missing like socks in the dryer.
Rather comically like pregnancy it will be almost exactly 9 months from the time we moved out until the time we move into our new home.
We are now entering our 3rd trimester. The first 3 months were rough, we found our rhythm the second 3 months and now as we are getting close to our due date we are getting cranky again in anticipation of delivery and labor. No I didn’t get it backwards. The house will be delivered and then we will “labor” with packing, boxes and heavy lifting.
I am grateful for lots of things but mostly that Paul and I have not killed each other while being in such close quarters. We have maintained our sense of humor for the most part and I have only had one or two meltdowns. Maybe more, I was never good at math.
A season of change. For the first time in many years we did not host Christmas. One of our daughters volunteered and it was great. It was weird not putting up a tree (no room plus of course everything was packed). Please send oxygen to my friends who decorate for Christmas in October and may very well still have their trees up. The thought of not decorating at all for Christmas may cause them to faint.
You may think living with just the bare necessities has turned me into a minimalist. Give me a minute. Could not continue while I was laughing hysterically. You see I come from a long line of classy hoarders and while I am much improved I will readily admit I miss my stuff.
I do find comfort in the simple things as I navigate the boxes looking for one thing and finding a host of others I have been wondering about. It’s a bit like a treasure hunt and I’m sure when I unpack I will whoop with surprise at things I forgot about but love. I see some emotional moments as I find things I truly missed like the afghan I made for my mother that got packed by mistake. There have been many moments since she passed away that I longed to wrap myself up in it. Also the look of puzzlement as to why we kept some things that clearly needed to exit stage right.
In every move that I have made I always pack the cookie sheets, unpack them in the new house and in my best imitation of the cast from Schitts Creek exclaim “Ewww why did I keep these” I have brand new ones in the wings waiting to take their rightful place in my new cupboards. Only took me 9 moves to figure that one out! 🙂
Of course remnants of the pandemic have appeared to make the building more difficult including ovens that have not arrived and are much needed for the final inspection. Ovens that we ordered ages ago.
As we navigate the “in between” we have found new appreciation for things we have taken for granted and as easy as it would have been to stay put I am proud that we were brave enough to make a significant change.
Also I was taken aback by the number of people that suggested we outfit the house so we could age in place. Mmmm a good idea I suppose. One of the most frequent suggestions were bars in the bathrooms. My husband was opposed to it but I finally won out. It will, however, be hard to please everyone. I mean how many bottles of beer, wine and bourbon can you fit in such a small space 🙂 Not to mention glasses and ice.
Wish us luck …. the due date is approaching and no epidural in sight. 🙂
As always keep triing! Jennifer
