On letting go and starting over

It’s been a long time since I lived in the same house for more than 2 years.  While packing and moving can be a pain, it can also be therapeutic.  Like the beginning of a new year, a different residence is a sort of clean slate, one you can start over in.

Of course this depends on how much of your old house you move with you.  I try to keep the “stuff” I own to a minimum.  I try to purge often, getting rid of outgrown clothing and broken toys.  Of random pieces of plastic and dollar store finds that should never have been bought to begin with. 

As I packing our kitchen, I’m so tempted to throw away all our old dishes and pots and pans.  In our new house, the one we own, I want to have nice new things, not whatever works and is cheep.  I want a matching dinning set.  We had a nice one, but it’s got so many missing broken pieces now that it makes more sense to start over than replace what’s been lost.  I want new beautiful pans, not purchased at Ikea, ones that won’t burn and stand up to high heat.  I want to leave most of this junk I’ve collected behind and really start over.  New house, new things.

But I can’t.  I have to take the old, transient life with me, at least for a little while.  I can’t afford to replace it all at once.  As much as I want a new clean slate, I can’t really have one.  We will be starting with what we already have, not matter how much I want to leave it all behind.  It will take time to start over.  It will take time to morph our new, outdated house into a home.  It will take time to decorate and make it mine.  Time to replace the things that have been lost or broken and time to settle into a new domestic, home-owner life.

I feel like I’m stepping out of a comfort zone and into something big.  I’ve never painted, I don’t really decorate.  Our drill is pretty new and this is the first place we have even hung shelves.  I keep it simple and cheep because I hate spending money.  And we are always leaving.  I have one foot out the door, I know the count down, so why spend time and money we don’t have to decorate? 

This house has felt different.  For one thing, it’s a house and not an apartment.  But knowing I would be in the same town for more than two years has really helped me let go and loosen up.  The new house, the first one we have ever bought, excites me and scares me more than I can admit.

It’s where my kids with start school.  We’ll be outside by the tree, taking pictures with new backpacks and pressed polo's.  We will celebrate birthdays and holidays with friends and family packed into the living room.  The kids will do their homework at the dining room table and play tag with their friends in the back yard.  They will stomp up the stairs when I’m being unfair and come crying to me when the world is.  It’s the first house they will really remember.  It’s where their childhood will be lived.

I can’t wait for new dishes and pots and pans.  I can’t wait to paint the walls and hang curtains.  But mostly I can’t wait to stop moving from house to house and make a home, one that’s worth being in pictures and remembering fondly for decades to come.  I know it will take time, effort, energy and money to make it into what I want it to be, but I can’t wait to start.


linked up with shell for Pour Your Hear Out