A Place to Be

For the most part, we're all moved into our new house. What a house it is. To the unsuspecting eye, it's just another house, but to us, it's both a transition and a realization. The whole time we've lived together, we've been crammed into apartments that we've liked well enough, but this - this is a house, a sign that we seem to have grown up. We have a front porch and a back patio and a garage, an indoor washer and dryer, central air and heat, hard wood floors in the living room and dining room, new carpet in the bedrooms, and lots of natural light.

It's smaller than what we originally wanted. We were aiming for a three-bedroom, but we found this two-bedroom charmer and walked in and knew that it was ours. There are some things that you just know, and this was one of them. We walked in and knew that this was the place we would spend the next phase of our lives, until it's time to move on.

The boxes are piled high, and some haven't even made it over yet. Our clean laundry is all over the floor (quite counterproductive), but where else are we going to put it? We've been eating out for every meal, and Roy has been kneeling on the floor while using his computer. It's a lovely state of flux we're in, where we realize that we can't find this book or that shirt but really what matters most is that we are here, here together, in our new place.

Sometimes there is nothing sweeter or more needed than change. There is nothing better to remind you of where you're going than to look at where you've been. Our new house is full of old things: books we've had for years, sentimental items of clothing, knicknacks, treasured letters. We both had entire separate lives before meeting, and with each day we are together, we join those lives more and more. Our new house contains all the dimensions of our lives.

Today is one of those emotional days, the anniversary of something tough that I went through eleven years ago. Life lessons are often bittersweet and are never easy, and this one was no different. It set into motion some big changes that I wasn't ready for but that I had to face nonetheless. It took me a great long while before I found some peace within all that change. Eleven years later, here I am, always the conflicted Gemini, but amazingly blessed - because when I walk in the door of our new house tonight, there he'll be, the one person who could accept this part of me, and he will hug me, reminding me of the sweet possiblity of change and healing - and how, in the end, love really does conquer all.