About a year ago, our family made a big move to a different state. Since binding our lives together, my husband and I have moved plenty of times, but moving our family of five seemed like a much bigger ordeal than our previous move with our little family of three.
It was a quick move just before Christmas and – phew – life seemed a little jumbled for a bit.
About three to six months after the move, I had a lot of friends, family members, and neighbors ask if I felt settled in my new home.
I honestly didn’t know how to reply the first few times the question was offered.
I felt at home in our new residence, sure. Our house is rented, not a home we own, but we live out of town and I truly think we hit the jackpot of communities where we are.
But settled?
I started responding with a silly reference to the Disney film, saying that I would likely be more like Mrs. Incredible, and in four years I’ll be calling my husband at work just to claim with full enthusiasm that I have finally unpacked the last box.
Humorous Disney moments aside, I had a hard time feeling settled in our new home for – well, for most of our first year here.
Especially those first three to six months, that “homey” feeling felt very much lacking.
When people would ask (and it was all out of thought and care and pure kindness), I would simply nod and tell my silly Mrs. Incredible phrase. But inside my head and my heart were feeling the pressure of just how un-settled I really felt.
- We didn’t have any bookshelves to house our many boxes of books.
- And I couldn’t build the bookshelves until I finished building a cabinet in my kitchen to store my pots and pans in because there were no cabinets in the kitchen large enough to house a small sauce pan (horrific kitchen flaw, tell me about it).
- And besides building cabinets and bookshelves, I am busy homeschooling my kids. Not to mention juggling my daily responsibilities as a wife, mother, and housekeeper. The daily tasks of laundry and dishes and preparing meals (not just breakfast, lunch, and dinner; but the in-between snacks for my kids), and potty training, vacuuming – the list goes on but I am sure every mother gets it! It can all just feel like a lot.
- And all the while that I’m trying to function daily and simultaneously build furnishings to improve that daily function and feel of our home – all that while, my husband and I are living out of a handful of totes because we don’t have a functioning dresser in our room anymore, having given ours to our kids when we moved because … well, that’s just what happened.
- And then before you know it, it’s summer. Plants and seeds are going into the ground, moving garden hoses becomes a daily chore, and our time indoors suddenly slims to a minimum. All attention is focused on the disarray outside.
Settled? No, certainly not. I felt like Chaos Incorporated all bound up in the tall frame of a late 20s female.
But despite the feeling of not feeling settled, life carries on.
April turns to May, which flows into June, and then before we know it October is wrapping into November which flies into December. And the year is gone.
Yep, gone!
There have been so many moments in this last year where I have sat in my living room wishing that I could just feel settled in my own space.
In fact, the truth is that I have spent countless moments in probably the last 9 or 10 years longing for that feeling of being settled.
I am sure many of you readers have felt that at some point in your life. And some are maybe even feeling that way now.
Like so many other young families, my husband and I desperately look forward to the day we can buy a home of our own, and settle down roots. That we can plant trees and grow deep roots [link to other article] in the land, and in the community. Not shallow roots – but solid, foundational roots.
That we can settle down in our home, and enjoy the comfort of familiarity within our own walls.
That is the dream.
And although we may not be there now – nor will we likely be there next year – that day is coming. Fingers crossed for it to be sooner rather than later.
In the last 9 or 10 years as my husband and I have moved, changed jobs, chased dreams, and modified addresses, I have learned one important truth: that life happens one step at a time.
All too often those steps seem to come in baby steps, especially when we want them to come in leaps and bounds.
But they do happen.
Or rather, they can happen. One distinct daily decision at a time.
As I sit today in my living room, I can’t help but nod and at least feel good at all the things I did do this last yeast. From my spot on the couch (where I am quite childishly typing away under the warmth of a snuggle blanket and a cup of warm tea at the ready) I can see the kitchen cabinet – my “February project” that I finally finished in June; the bookshelves are proudly displaying the titles of our fond collection of books (Perhaps I should avoid mentioning that the bookshelves were my “April project”, finished in November…).
The benches in the entry, the kitchen table downstairs that our family uses for homeschool, the toy boxes, and all the inside decorations that come together to make a house a home.
All of these things – all of these things that I made or refinished – they help make this house a home. A home to feel settled in. And though it took me all year, and there are still many more projects to do, I can sit here in my home tonight and say – finally – that yes, I am starting to feel settled in my new home.
Though I know this rented home will only offer me shallow roots, I know I can continue to feel settled in my home with each new season, with each new project finished.
So I will keep working at it, and know that I’ll get there one step at a time.
