The middle place

I am stuck in a middle place.  Our house is under contract, but it's not sold.  We have signed a contract to build a new home, contingent, of course, on the final sale of ours.  We plan to move into an apartment during the building process but I haven't signed a lease yet because I feel like finalizing a move will jinx the sale of our house and it will fall through.  We have a moving truck booked for next Tuesday and plans to close on our house Thursday.  As I'm trying half heartedly to pack I have to focus on what we will need to keep out to get by for the next few months and what we can put away in storage.  I've filled out paperwork for new schools but haven't turned it in nor have I notified the current schools about us leaving.  I cannot embrace what is ahead or let go of what will soon be behind. 

I'm not ready to say good-bye to anything just yet, but I need to do that in order to say hello to new things.  I don't want to say good-bye to watching my girls act silly in our backyard pool.  Sierra unabashedly cuts loose there like she never does in public.  She is much more reserved when she's around others.  I will miss seeing that side of her.  We gave our chickens to our friends and have neglected our new garden.  We had our last swim meet with the team we've been on for 5 years.  I'm not ready to say good-bye to that.  I have been trying to fit in as many play dates and pool parties as possible between work and thinking about packing.  I've let my mind wander to hopes of lots of kids running through the streets in a family neighborhood, but without our house being completely sold, I don't let myself get too caught up in those thoughts.  I'm working on letting go of what we are leaving, knowing that it most likely will happen. On the other hand, I'm thinking of the positives of where we are headed without letting myself get completely attached to those ideas, on the chance that everything falls through (so "glass half empty", I know!).  The middle place.  It sucks.

 

The break-up

I have broken up with my house.  It has been a hard break up and I still live here, so I'm surrounded by it everyday.  I don't do well with ambiguity.  I never have.  When a boyfriend and I would break up, that was it for me.  There may have been brief moments of "this is familiar and comfortable so I'll hang around for a while", but emotionally I was always done at the first break.  Typically, I'm an all-or-nothing kind of girl and when I realize it will eventually be nothing I just have to go there mentally and there's no going back. 

A few days after Brad and I got engaged, a mere 4 1/2 months after we met, he had a "moment".  We had just returned to his Air Force base from our weekend getaway where he had asked me to marry him.  He seemed wishy-washy.  I asked if he was sure that he wanted to get married.  He said he "thought so".  "You think so?!"  Then he went for a run.  I sat in his room trying to decide what I was going to do when he burst through the door just minutes after he had left and told me that that was the stupidest thing he had ever said and of course he wanted to marry me, that he would be an idiot not too.  I'm glad he figured it out fast!  I honestly don't know if I had returned to Ohio on that note if we would be married today.  I don't know that I could have fully turned my heart back to him if we had broken up.

Deciding to move has been a difficult and emotional decision.  In order to help me cope, I had to break up with my house.  I've had to turn away from the plans and dreams that we had for this place and what our family would do here.  I can still appreciate the beauty that is in my backyard (literally) but I have to focus on what we want to move towards and why we want to move away from here.  So I sit in this beautiful house with a gorgeous view, but I cannot fully appreciate it.  It's too hard to fully appreciate it.  I need to move on, both physically and mentally.  But we are still here and we don't know when we will leave and that is difficult.  That is ambiguity. Which I don't do well with.

I realize it's just a space and that my family and our love is what makes it a home.  It's still hard.  We had dreams that we have to adjust and alter.  I know that as long as our family is healthy we are good.  We will make new dreams and appreciate a new space.  I just need to be in that space to put my full heart and head into it.  We'll get there eventually.  But in case I don't seem like myself lately, it's the break up.

** As a side note to my friends, dear friends, my village, I have NOT broken up with you!  Nor will I!  I am persistent, if nothing else, even with the measley little distance that we plan to move... so don't even think we are breaking up too!