Reemerging

Not surprisingly, buying a house and moving really shook up the routine for a couple of weeks (not that I've had much of a routine this fall...or really this entire year anyway!). I had to drop the ball on a lot of things, particularly from last Thursday through Monday, when we had no internet access at either the old place of the new place. I basically gave myself permission to focus only on moving. The bad news is that I now have two weeks of grading to do and I haven't touched my dissertation in close to a month. Gah. The good news is that this was somehow the easiest move I've ever had, despite the fact that it was the biggest one in terms of the sheer amount of stuff we had to move. It definitely helped that both Penn and I were able to work together to get everything packed. We also had so many friends help. Two of Penn's friends from his hometown spent Thursday and Friday of last week helping us get the house move-in ready. They helped Penn with a ton of yardwork (including chainsawing down a dead tree that was three times as tall as the house; I was at work while they did that, thank god, because I would have been obnoxiously nervous if I had to watch them do it. It could have landed on the house!) and they hung my blinds and curtains and did some other random tasks around the house. It was hugely helpful. Then on the day we moved in we had half a dozen people show up to help (loading up took three hours but we unpacked the U Haul in half an hour flat!), and Penn's good friend and his girlfriend stayed with us on Saturday night and helped us unpack, so by Sunday afternoon the job of organizing the house was more than halfway done. It's amazing to have such kind friends, since all they got in return were a few meals and beer. I feel very blessed. I managed to get most everything else under control over the course of this week, and now I just need to unpack our enormous book collection and get our "art" (we have very little actual art) and decorative touches into place.And Penn has taken care of most of the minor repairs that needed to be done and he has the yard in good shape (and because he chopped down that huge tree we have years worth of firewood. Seriously, YEARS.)
It feels amazing to finally be in our house. I can see why home ownership is so seductive. Don't like something? You can change it! And there are other, less tangible emotions that come from having the house now. Penn told me the other night that he couldn't believe he was sitting on the couch in his own house with his soon-to-be-wife, and he didn't need to say more than that because I knew what he meant. There's a great confidence that comes from owning a house together, to planting our roots in the same place and making it ours. I spent most of my teens and twenties feeling like I was biding my time, having fun but ultimately waiting to get to where I am now. I was always just so curious about who I would marry and where I would live and how we would make a living. And now, barring a life-changing disaster, I know the answers to those questions. For someone like me who craves stability and security more than anything else, tying myself to Penn and this house is, paradoxically, liberating. It's frightening, too, because I sometimes have a sense that having received what I always wanted means it can only go downhill from here. I suppose I can only hope that we continue to work hard together and be lucky.
I love the house. I love seeing my dog snuffling around his big backyard, I love using all of my counterspace to prep meals, I love simply walking down one flight of stairs to do laundry and not having to worry about whether or not I have quarters to pay for it, I love the wood floors, I love finally living somewhere with a proper hallway again. I love imagining what it will be like to finish my dissertation in my new office. Even more than that, I love imagining what it will be like to bring our first child through the front door and tell him or her that this is home. I hope I get to do those things.
Anyway, I'm on a shuttle headed to the airport for a conference and we're almost there, so I have to go. I have my own hotel room in Seattle and some other posts brewing, so there may be more to come soon, for a change.