Nine years ago, when we moved from BG to Toledo, I didn’t have my camera with me to document the move. Now, I have a cameraphone — hell, who am I kidding? I have a handheld computer with an on-board camera that kicks the crap out of the digital camera I didn’t own until 2005.
At any rate, I took a ton of pictures this time around, and I’ll let them do most of the talking.
I was taking the framed artwork down from Connor’s wall and wrapping it in bubble wrap for the move when the emotion really hit me. We’ve been through so many changes in the past nine years. This house has been the setting for so many memories.
Waiting with Aaron and Eric in the still-chilly house on Moving Day for the tow truck to arrive and tow the empty U-Haul out of the mud.
Bringing kitty Mei home for the first time and watching her do laps, then lay down and sleep under the speaker stands or the recliner.
Quiet Sunday mornings lounging on the couch, reading magazines and petting Mei.
Playing with Mei and her kitty fishing pole, or the laser pointer, or her jingle ball.
Intimate afternoons with Aaron.
Parties with our friends, playing Rock Band, looking at photos of our vacations, enjoying adult beverages and sushi and roast pork (though not all at the same time).
Laying newborn Connor on the living room floor on the afghan Traeonna made for him, eating the Indian takeout Sheryl brought for us, just embarking on the very beginning of this crazy parental journey.
Flooding the bathroom with my first post-partum BM.
Nursing Connor in his room at 3am, both of us wrapped in a blanket against the winter chill, with Aaron laying on the floor to keep us company.
Rocking Connor to sleep, listening to Neil Young live at Massey Hall.
Letting Connor “cry it out” during a week of sleep-training, after Aaron spent four (FOUR!) hours one night trying to get Connor to stay down.
Connor falling down and giving himself a black eye at his first birthday party, only a few days after taking his first steps.
And now, Connor running around, chattering away, trying to get into everything, but being irresistably cute while doing it.
It’s not that I’m sad to leave our current home, per se. Our new home is going to be host to so many new family memories; it’s just realizing that our current home is already on its way to being just a memory, just a story we tell Connor, just a place we drive Connor to see when he asks where we lived when he was born. Soon, this place will be filed away in my mind with our first apartment together, and my one apartment on my own, and Aaron’s few apartments on his own.
We spent nine years of our life here. We’ll spend many, many more at the new house.
Back in 2004, Aaron and I scoffed at the idea of a “starter home.” After all, if we didn’t want to live in a house until it was paid off and we owned it outright, why not just rent? Why take that risk?
And so it was that we purchased our first home together.
We’d been living together in a duplex apartment for a couple of years, since before we were married (but after we were engaged for about a year). Aaron had moved from part-time to full-time at work, and we just felt like it was time to stop putting money in someone else’s pocket. We could own our own home for the same amount as we were paying in rent every month — why not put that money to good use for ourselves, instead of paying someone else’s mortgage?
Back then, we had a list of requirements: three bedrooms (or two plus a den), attached garage (preferably two-car), dishwasher, central air, and a pleasant neighborhood (where we could safely take walks). In the end, we got the three bedrooms, an attached one-car garage, and a walkable neighborhood. As it turns out, our house stays fairly cool in the summer, so the lack of central air wasn’t disastrous… but the dishwasher’s absence has been keenly felt over the years, as has the two-car garage.
Like I said, we didn’t expect to move. Ever.
We also didn’t expect to have Connor, or receive an inheritance. We didn’t expect to have the reason or the means to buy another home.
But here we are.
It’s a Sunday morning in the middle of a three-day weekend, and I’m relaxing on the couch in my yukata (Japanese summer robe), reading my final issue of Better Homes and Gardens.
I’m obviously not in their demographic, though, as their main stories this issue revolve around entertaining guests in the home during the summer months: garden parties, grill-outs, and the like. Don’t they know that most of my potential invitees have spouses, houses, children, and/or have much better things to do than hang out with me on a Saturday afternoon? Didn’t they get the memo that I’ve cancelled all future post-vacation parties, due to a lack of interest?
Hmph. Just as well that my subscription’s expiring, I suppose.
