Sometimes I just have to keep reminding myself

John went to his Mom's yesterday to help his siblings work on her windows. When he called to let me know he got there he also told me our old house is for sale.

{sigh}

John and I bought some land with a mobile home knowing we wanted to build a house on the property. We searched through many books and magazines with home plans. I kept going back to one house. I loved it, except for the kitchen. It had a galley kitchen which I knew from experience I do not like. He redesigned the kitchen and I loved it. We had a house plan!

We had the house built then started our family. It was a wonderful home and I loved it. Six months after John returned from Iraq, he told me he was applying for a job in Columbia. I knew if he got the job we would have to move. There was no way I was going to let John drive a three-hour round trip everyday. We waited...he got the job.

Of course, the news became he had to go to school for six-weeks then right then the very next day was his first day in Columbia. There was little time for him to help me get a house ready to sell. So, with two children, age three and one, I began to pack up a lot of our belongings myself, move them to a storage building, preparing our home to be listed. We had watched too many sell your house shows and knew we had to move much of our "stuff" off property.

January came. John's new job was going well, but he was tired already from the driving (three weeks in). Our house was ready to go on the market. We held our breath not knowing what would happen. Within a week, we had an offer. By the end of the second week, we finalized the contract.

I cried as we pulled out of the driveway for the last time. I wasn't sure what life was going to be in Columbia. I didn't know if we would have all the wonderful things we had in Edgefield. Jesse was in a fantastic preschool program meeting kids who would be her classmates. We would get McDonald's on Sunday mornings and take it to the town park to eat then play. We had a huge yard full of possibilities as the girls grew.

In Columbia, we never knew where we were going or how to get there. We had no friends. An extremely tiny yard and a much smaller house. The only people we knew (John knew) were his co-workers.

Last night I sat here thinking of our home in Edgefield. Wishing, in many ways, we had never left it. It is really the first place John and I think of as our own. I loved it there. It is where we started our family. Six years later I still call it "my house". John said last night it would not be so hard if it were not right across the street from his Mom's. He is right. We see how the Bradford pear trees grew just like we wanted them to, to shade the front porch. We see the changes they have made to the outside and I've wondered what became of the inside.

Now, I know. Last night I took a virtual tour of my home. It is no longer mine. I held back the tears for awhile, but Chloe found me crying later. She told John. He is a man. (I say that lovingly.) I am grieving a bit for my home that is no longer mine. Clearly. But in my mind, I see it the way it was. I can walk from room to room and still remember where everything was. John could not even remember where the TV was.

So, we started talking about. The "ifs" in life. "If" we had stayed the girls would be in public school. It was Courtney, who I met at taekwondo, who gave me the piece that convinced John to try it. The girls would not be taking taekwondo (there is no place like that in Edgefield). There would be no Nature classes or Children's Theatre. And John would be packing again to go back to Iraq. Our lives would be nothing as they are now. So, as much as I loved that house when it was our home, I love our lives more.

Goodbye my house.

Yep, I turned 40!

I have to admit this one, like 35, hit me pretty hard. I've been thinking about it since I turned 39. I think that me thinking about it has put me in a state of analyzing myself. Seeing where I've been and where I am. I have to say I'm quite happy with who I am and where I'm going.

First of all, I have my wonderful husband and the two sweetest girls I could ask for. I have wonderful friends. I am enjoying teaching TKD, even though it has been a challenge, to say the least, for me. We are still homeschooling, which honestly takes most of my time between actually doing it and planning it; but I wouldn't change it and I believe John feels the same way.

I have noticed in the last few months a subtle change in me. The kind of change you would only notice if you really knew me. The way I've been able to completely let myself go in a crowd and "shaka shaka" the chocolate coating for ice cream. They way I laugh at loud, fully and completely, no matter where I am. I've also shaken the "I don't care about anything" mood I was in January. And February. And March.

Okay, so I haven't been forty that long. However, I think I've been ME long enough to finally feel comfortable being me. I'm going to enjoy the feeling!