Home is where the heart is...

I hate moving.... with a passion.

I don't know any person who enjoys moving... but seriously... I really hate moving.

House hunting, signing leases and figuring out a new area.

Taking everything down off the walls and living in a bare and empty house, unable to figure out where anything is for weeks before. Navigating around boxes stacked all over the house and actually finding enough boxes to fit all of those last little bits of things you never even knew you had. 

Unpacking that takes an entire month and trying to decide what to keep and what to get rid of.

I hate it.

I have moved 3 times in the past six years and come this December that tally will increase to four times. The house that I am in now I moved into just this past December and minus the annoying H.O.A. and the fact that my room is boiling hot in the summer... I have fallen in love with this place and the thought of moving again makes my stomach turn. Now I know that moving three times in 6 years is not bad for some people but the moves I have had to do have been horrendous.

I had anywhere from 4-6 roommates, with a relatively large house and a PACKED garage and the process of sorting through who's stuff is what and which house it goes to and who's responsibility it is to clean what and sort through what... ugh.... it. was. a. nightmare.

The last house I moved out of was probably one of the hardest moves yet. It was a house of people I had lived with for the past 5 years and it was heartbreaking and seriously drama-filled when the house split up. I still close my eyes and cringe everytime I think about it.

So... all that to say when I moved into this house last December... I was planning on staying for a long.... long time. My rommate Sam and I have been living together since I first moved out on my own at 19 years old. That's about seven years! When we moved to the place we are in now, we added a friend of mine from highschool... a girl I have known since we were little and a friend of Sam's as well.

Katie and I go way back to our highschool field hockey days and years in youth group at church during junior high and on.

Mine and Katie's plan was to keep this house until one of us got married and from the looks of it... we figured that would be quite a while considering the luck of our love lives.... (seriously we both had an uncanny ability to pick some real "winners" if you know what I mean)

well... somewhere over the course of a year I decided that I probably just wasn't the marrying kind and she decided to go get herself a serious boyfriend that she is now living with...

...so much for the plan.

sigh.

So here I am... prematurely grieving the loss of another house that has just become home. Understanding that I have serious attachment issues.... I just can't seem to let go of anything or anyone these days. Change feels so earth shattering and I've been feeling extremely vulnerable lately...

I think I really just want to grow roots somewhere.

I've been finding some places online with great potential but despite that, my heart sinks everytime I walk through my house and look at the things I will probably have to give up.

My wonderfully large kitchen with a gas stove and a beautiful bay window that overlooks the trees and streams in light while I cook.

The peaceful view I have from the balcony off of our living room. The water that reaches right up to the deck below us.

 

Our neat, little living room with our cozy fireplace and vaulted ceilings...

But most of all I think I will miss the memories that have already been formed in this house. The birthdays, parties and get togethers. The excitement of having my first "grown up" house on a nursing salary, with nice furniture and that welcoming sense of pride I carried with making this home. The sense that I have finally... finally arrived to where I have wanted to be for so very long.

Friends...

moving. just. sucks.

So... for now I am enjoying the last few months in this house and I am praying that this next move will truly be the last for a very long... long time.

And I'm hoping that somewhere beneath it all, there will be a lovely silver lining amidst the dark and gloomy clouds... and who knows... maybe this next house will woo me to love it even more than the one I am in now... one can always hope, right?