Monday was moving day. We spent the day taping boxes, but mainly lifting them.
The night before we had packed our cars and I made a mental note of all the things that were coming in my car: my journals, camera, my favourite books, photo albums of the girls, my laptop, some jewellery and trinkets I've had forever. Things that felt like a bit of home. Things I didn't want going with the removalist. I felt safer knowing these things were with me.
I wondered if these were my most prized items, what I'd save if I had to pack the car and just leave. And I suppose they are. Each filled with memories, each revealing a part of me.
Along with those items I threw in a few practicalities that I knew would make life easier - the cleaning products, the portable DVD player for the girls and clean sheets so I wouldn't be searching through boxes when bed-making time came.
When Monday night arrived, we found ourselves rather boxed in. A lot less done than we had hoped. The new house given a quick clean, boxes piled up in every room, the beds still to be made, dinner non-existent.
I drove to my parent's house to pick up our girls while the removalists continued box dropping. "Tonight we get to sleep at our new house," I told them a minute into our drive home. Then, glancing in the review mirror, I saw their beautiful eyes closed fast asleep.
I rang my husband to tell him I was five minutes away, and I had our most precious cargo with me.
And that's when it hit me, that all these things I was packing were never going to make this house feel like the home I wanted it to be without these two little girls filling each room with their love and laughter, without the four of us coming together each day.
My husband keeps saying a house is just four {or more} walls. But a home is more, I keep telling him.
Tonight we spoke about how far we've come, those who have helped us so much along the way. And how we're feeling. Like this space we're living in {with all it's unpacked boxes and two beautiful little girls and four people who love each other endlessly} is already home.
I write that with a sigh of relief, a tired body and a beautifully happy heart.
xx
What makes your space home?
