Moving House, Moving Home

Just a minute ago, I put down the receiver of my family’s home phone, ending a call with our elderly neighbour who had called to express her sorrow that we were leaving. With that simple action came a myriad of thoughts and questions. I realised that this moving business is catching up to me.

For those who are not familiar with my current housing situation, I live at home with my family of six, and have done so since birth (albeit not always with six of us). It’s been 17 years since I have moved house, and since I am 19 years old, I do not have any recollection of having done so before. Thus, these past few hectic weeks have been especially exciting, overwhelming and above all, stressful.

Our place has changed a lot in the past 17 years. And all of us who occupy the house have changed alongside it. As I sit here at our dinner table that has since become a piece of “outdoor furniture” thanks to the work of stylists, the backyard takes on a life of its own as scenes from our lives begin to play before me. Our lush, manicured lawn that has been relentlessly tended to by my brother this past week was once the playground for my sister, our soft toys and me. In the springtime these tiny purple flowers would burst forth from the grass and funny spindly weeds would entertain my five-year-old self with their odd hanging bits that I always thought were caterpillars stuck on the end of them.

The swing set came and went, and our treehouse was brought in, its features – the fireman pole, the ladder, the slide – all designed by me and my then very small brother on the computer program “Paint”.

Equally entertaining was the fact that there was always a new “pet” to adopt. I would like to declare this paragraph a formal apology to all the wildlife we may have accidentally abused. Particularly when we captured innocent butterflies, ladybirds, snails and bugs, and attempted to rear them in plastic takeaway containers that were poor imitators of their natural habitat. (Disclaimer: bush turkeys are exempted from this apology. Crows too.)

There are many pieces of myself that are buried in the foundations of our house and the roots in the soil (I may have cried hysterically when I found out that our blossom tree was cut down whilst I was overseas…Read more about the shedding of tears here). However, to end on a lighter note that reflects my current mindset I would like to quote a favourite book character of mine who once said, “For every exit, there is always an entrance.”

Sometime in the not too distant future, it is likely that we will close our front door for the final time and walk on out of here, belongings in boxes and tears in our eyes. I prefer my book quote, but to me its meaning is essentially the same as the whole “when God closes a door he opens a window” saying. We will exit this house, and cross the threshold into a new one, where I plan to announce our entrance with vigour, ready to create a new home, and have the whole process begin again.