Moving On

Some one close to me(eh-hem...Kudos to Uncle Mike) reminded me that we are not just packing up a house and stuff, but memories. I read that comment a few weeks ago, when I was on the verge of annoyance and tired of packing, sorting, and wanting to just be done with the whole ordeal already. I am not as excited for this move as my husband is. The house is perfect and a dream, but it is a reminder that it is not our own and that we have to wait a little while longer until that dream can be fulfilled again. It makes me feel desperate and angry, sometimes, knowing we were so close to home ownership once again, and to have that yanked away unfairly, is pretty disheartening, to say the least. Excited I am about getting out of the small, crowded house we are in now. Excited I am for the views of the Olympics and the Strait only a walk down the road. Excited I am to have a full closet, with doors, and enough room to entertain friends and family. These are the things memories are built on. I am trying to remain positive, just because I want the next few years to remind me that there is hope for the future to come and maybe this is a glimpse of what we really want when we begin to search for our dream home sometime down the road. For now, maybe three or more years, this new adventure will do.

But I thought about that comment some more, because the majority of my life, the homes we have lived in were rented, never owned. I sometimes wondered if my parents ever thought about the memories they packed up with each move, or was it just another move to something better or more affordable? So I took that simple comment to heart and thought about it, really.

From the Beginning

In Thermopolis, the only home I remembered was the trailer on Clark and the huge yard where you could see the endless Wyoming stars, if you slept underneath them. I can still recall my dad pointing out satellites in the night sky, my mom hosting and creating beautiful birthday parties for my sister and I, or the being "called inside" because my friends and I were too loud when we got to camp outside in the backyard. I remember being old enough to wake up in the middle of the night to play with my toys and sneaking an entire sleeve of Thin Mints to my room for a tea party, which my dad got blamed for eating. Or endless bike rides down by the river, pretending my bike was my RV, traveling the country side and preparing for camping trips.

Memories of youth.

I remember the houses in Laramie we lived in. Walking to school on 4th street, running loops around the house in West Laramie in the middle of the night and covering my dad with our bath robes. The house on Reynolds that had the big fenced yard that the wind knocked down somehow (as if that's news to Laramie), and the old neighbor we used to visit and eat his orange gummy candies out of his candy dish. The house on Reynolds was three bedroom and I remember my mom closing the door one afternoon after getting yelled at for no reason to find a New Kids poster on the back...best.mom.ever!

Memories of transition.

Then the move to Manhattan, the house with the porch swing that my family and I loved. The night we watched our school on fire, the music room burnt down. The first date where that sophomore boy was polite to my grizzly dad, and drove me off into the night in his Camero. The tears I cried over stupid crushes, friends, and mixed up hopes, in the closet I shared with my younger sister, who didn't know how to deal with me. Heck, I didn't know how to deal with me.

Then Branson...

The weird neighbor boy knocking on my window at night. The roasting of Smores on the front stoop over citranella candles with our family friends. The bonding between my mom and I. The news of my grandpa's death...

Springfield...

That huge backyard that housed so many memories for me. The countless and endless nights spent with friends, whom I cherish to this day, that shaped me in high school and who I am forever grateful for their influences. There was a swing that hung from the tree, that, if it could talk, it would recount the international students and I enjoying a birthday party smoke (or two), the boy who stole my heart senior year, my sister breaking her collarbone, and the countless conversations held in the sway of back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

Moving On, Moving Out.

But then it seems flitting, the moves after that. College was dorm rooms that were too crowded and too prison-like to want to recall many memories. Those memories were impulsive and immature, fleeting, searching, and finding. Some were left wild and free, moments of indecisive injury to a self-esteem that I would rather leave in the past. But those moments made me realize the power of friendship, many of which have had a timeless impact on my life. Those friendships I still hold close to my heart today, even though many of us have grown up and moved on and live very far apart from each other. But those people helped shaped me into the person I am today...so living in the constructed walls of dorm rooms and small apartments is simple memories of the ups and downs and reality of life.

Then, the boy...

The main memories I house now are with my partner in crime, the one for which the stars were aligned for. Those memories were the small apartment in Bradenton that we met our "kids" (those crazy cats we adopted) and our wonderful set of friends that will be lifelong. The memories of that little apartment had us staying put during Hurricane Charlie, with all our belongings upstairs in the vacant apartments, and then driving around to the boarded up ghost town that was Bradenton. That place was our walk-to the Roo downtown to drink with friends. When we upgraded to the house on Bryn Mawr, it was another place we cherished with memories of sailing on the Sarasota Bay at sunset, parties into the wee hours of the morning, and our small life that was the beginning of the next great adventure...

Now...here we are down the road. Foreclosed on a home, nomadic in nature, but finally thinking we have adapted and believe that many, if not all, of our prayers have been answered. Looking forward to the new memories we intend to build before we pack up again to move to what will hopefully be the next "owned home". The future's not ours to see...Que sera.

Apple orchard

Hot tub

Field, orchard, and Strait

Firepit

Mt. Baker courtesy of the zoom lens, from the beach down the road

Sunroom Olympic View

Dungeness Lighthouse-Zoom lens view from the beach

Ships sailing in the strait

Orchard