It was the day my husband and I promised the bank we'd pay them for the next 30 years.
We signed lots of papers to prove it.
And they let us put our name above an address.
And we turned the key in the lock and began to claim it with paint, and bleach, and a new toilet to replace the old baby blue one.
I was five months pregnant, in nursing school, and juggling two part time jobs. He was working full time already, and had never really run a skill saw before and didn't know anything about plumbing or tiling. That all changed in the next several months.
It was in those days when we really started to realize our parents knew more than we had assumed in high school. They came, scraped wallpaper, hauled over their own power tools for him to practice with, let us borrow the pickup truck for loads of gravel for the driveway, stopped by to reprimand me for lifting heavy things I shouldn't, and donated houseplants which I have summarily kept at the point of death by dehydration for years now. We spent that first Thanksgiving in our bare living room. On the first piece of furniture we'd ever bought. A futon.
I wasn't satisfied; but hey, it was a starting point. We'd fix it up, let its character show through, chase the bats out of the attic, refinish the floors. I would be happy in our first house. Eventually.
It is seven years later. This little two bedroom house is the only home all four of my children have ever known. Every other year there's been a new baby, and the house seemed older and smaller and I was discontent. I wished the wallpaper wasn't torn and I could afford better curtains. I wished for bigger closets. (Heck, any closets!) Turns out, you need money to fix up a house, at least a little. Once a policeman turned up at our door, a warrant in hand for someone once connected with the address. We bought a new deadbolt. Twice we (ok, he) chased bats out of the bedroom at midnight. I've still never refinished the floors.
Well, we determined to try to sell it, and sometimes people could see past the six person clutter against the walls and would try to buy it. Each time, it didn't happen. We stayed on.
I sighed and started to take the hint.
We talked about the possibility of having to build an addition. And of making the place more handicapped accessible. Of having 4 teenage boys fit around the table.
He got more gravel to make the driveway fit two vans.
I planted a garden on the side lawn postage stamp.
He cut down some trees so we could see from the deck to the old steeples across the river.
I stopped worrying about showing the house to perspective buyers. The boys took advantage by ferrying Grandma's collections of train tracks, building blocks, books, and dress up from her house to fill every available inch of wall space I hadn't ruled out.
So now it's been seven years.
We've settled in.
The house is cluttered with my pack rattiness and memories.
With crayons. Papers. Books. Life lived 24 hours a day not in offices or school halls, but within these crooked, chalk-streaked walls.
There are Crayola pictures proudly scotch taped to wallpaper.
There are my own sticky notes slapped haphazardly around the kitchen sink.
There's the woodstove filling the kitchen with warmth as the dishes drip dry on the sideboard.
My grandmother's old piano is wedged into our dining room after it was delicately removed from the house my grandfather built around it forty years ago.
Hanging askew, family photos are gazing benevolently over primary color maps and hand made calendars push pinned into walls below them.
Almost, almost - when the toys are picked up into their baskets and the tick of the clock is audible again in the evening calm - almost I am content in this little house.
We are warm and safe and have running water. I must humbly acknowledge I am rich compared to 95% of the world. So what if my curtains don't match my eyes? (Or, ahem, even each other?)
My children are with me 24/7 - and (most of the time) I really like that.
My husband can wield a drill with a fair amount of skill, and build good fires and good bookshelves, till a garden, dig out the basement, tile, roof, and shows a flair with duct tape when all else fails.
I have a place to hang laundry; I am queen of my kitchen.
The boys have local playmates. They've learned which way all balls will roll in the un-level kitchen. They find forgotten little trucks behind the baseboards. They dig for treasure in the slope behind the hill, bringing me old blue glass Milk of Magnesia bottles and Moxie from 100 years ago. Laughing recklessly, they wrestle with Daddy on the mattress we graduated to upstairs in the bedroom. At night they snuggle, bunk beds, crib and toddler bed, together in the cozy little room with the blue carpet. The curtains Grandma made sway gently in the window.
Maybe we will sell this little slice of real estate at some point. Or maybe our kids will inherit it in 60 years, and have to figure out how to get Great-Grandma's piano back out the door to their own house.
Maybe it doesn't matter so much.
This home sometimes seems to encompass my whole world.
I have to remind myself this world is not my ultimate home.
No matter how content I am, this world will never satisfy me. In fact, if I let them, these passive inanimate objects can own me. And do, sometimes. Why else would I dissolve in tears when the washing machine breaks down? Why be so depressed when the Google Maps car gets a snapshot of my house with all the kids' toys piled on the front lawn? And the throw rugs drying on the porch railings? And there were doubtless some scantily clad brothers chasing each other will realistic looking water guns in the background. The moment is rather etched in my memory. Why? As if I believed for a moment it really was such a big deal.
We were not made for this world.
I can not be content, not truly, until I am in the place my Savior is preparing for me to be, with Him, forever.
My kids tell me the house God is making for them for someday is made out of jello.
Whatever.
It'll be good.
And it won't take me seven years to accept that.
Thanks for the good reminder, Steph! As always...
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