The House That Became a Home

It's getting closer. Four weeks until my family ventures on to our next Air Force assignment. Two months ago I was anxiously excited to move and have a bigger house (we are living in 1150 sq. ft now with no garage). Now that I am actually starting to pack our things and clean things out, I am more nostalgic than anything. I'm sad to be leaving such great friends, sad to be leaving our first home and sad to be leaving this house that I complain so much about. And while I have complained about being cramped, the smallness of this house has taught me what we can live without and forced me to stay somewhat organized. I will always be thankful for that.

I always forget I don't like change. I'm that girl who sees the giant roller coaster and says, "Yeah let's ride!" and then when I get to the top say, "What was I thinking?!?!" Of course I get on, because who wants to walk all the way back down, but until the last big drop off is finished, I'm questioning why I ever got on.

As stated, our house is small. And old. Very old. There is a sixty year old layer of filth covering it that no amount of elbow grease can scrub clean. In the winter, the windows feel like they are open when they are surely closed. Our furniture doesn't go against the wall because the house is settling so bad that the wall is slanted in. There are huge cracks in the walls and in the living room you can actually see the roof starting to sink in. It's never where I pictured myself living, but over the years, this house has become our home. As much as I have complained about it's problems, it has done so much good for us.

This house is where we learned to be our own family. Where we argued and laughed our way through the first years of marriage. It's where I brought both my little children home for the first time and it's the only home they have known in their short little lives. It's where I cried from being home sick and rejoiced in the fact that we were our own. It's where my children took their first steps, where they learned to be siblings and where they said "mama" for the first time. It's where, on countless nights, my husband and I woke up to sick children and had to laugh at each other or else we would cry. It's where I learned to be a wife and a mother. It has kept us warm in the winter, cool in the summer and the merciless weather of Oklahoma off of our heads. It has been a good home.

This is one of the harder things about being in the military. Making new homes only to leave them a few years later. Always having the thought in the back of your mind that "this is not permanent". That you will have to repaint those walls and take down those pictures in a few short years. Never getting too attached to one place because you know you have to leave. And while I believe that a home can be made anywhere, there is something about the house that makes the home.  And the house is always changing. I guess this is also one of the arts of being a military wife; learning to create a new home in new places over and over again for many many years. Making your children feel that, although they aren't walking in the same door, they are coming home. They are coming home because that's where their family lives.

Four weeks and all boxes will be packed. Four weeks and we will say goodbye to the only home this family has known. Four weeks until we begin this new chapter in our lives.