Heights we can hardly imagine

I can't believe we're on the other side of this, talking about it in past tense as if it's all over and wrapped neatly up; a story with a middle and an end. There are still boxes and questions and projects—so many projects—but we did it! I did tell myself we would—that we'd be here at some point. But I don't know if I really believed it. First there was SO MUCH to do. It felt like on every surface in the house, someone was making one of those creations like in the first two pictures, or else there was something to fix—dents in doors, scribbles on walls, or the even-more-discouraging general dinginess that has the air of being impossible to clean at all. We made lists, of course. And we got rid of things. And we instituted and re-instituted very strict clean-up-after-yourself policies. (But if you are a parent you know exactly how effective these policies are.)

It seemed like a miracle when the house was all cleaned and sparkling ready to be put up for sale. It was so beautiful! I couldn't imagine anyone not wanting to buy it. (And we accepted an offer after one day, so I suppose at least some other people agreed!)

Then the house was sold and everything began to look terrible again. It was that kind of terrible that has a purpose and a direction—the same way your room always looks the worst right before you finish cleaning it—but the end seemed sooooo farrrrrr away that it might as well not have been there at all. Boxes! So many boxes! And no matter how much stuff you put in boxes—no matter how many times you thought, "Okay, that's almost everything in that room done"—there was always more. 

My text threads with Sam were full of pictures like this. "Can I throw these out?" "What on earth is this?" "Whyyyyyyy?"

We took multiple ("By Appointment Only!") trips to D.I. with things to give away. The kids were sent outside to play or sit on the porch swing a lot. (Philip and Allison took all the little kids to a park one morning when they were in town, and it was so wonderful!) Everyone started saying irritably "Where is the tape? Where is the paper?" and when the answer was (inevitably) "Boxed up," we were just forced to make do.

Then suddenly every day seemed like it was some "last." Last wave from the front porch. Last popsicles in the backyard. Last early-morning run on my favorite route. One of those last mornings as I was running, the power went out, and everything was suddenly utterly dark. I wasn't sure what had happened at first. I thought maybe just the streetlights on that street were out of order, but then I noticed how profound the silence was. It always seems silent on those early mornings, but this was degrees beyond the usual—no creaking air conditioning units starting up; no quiet crackling from porch lights. Only the temple still glowed in the darkness. It sounds like it might have been scary, but it was beautiful—like the world was standing still with only me to move through it and say goodbye to all the little places and moments I've accumulated these past twelve years. Here I took pictures of baby Malachi in his Halloween costume. Here little Sebby ran to push the sprinkler down. Here on this bench I cried from sorrows too deep to be contained in my usual bathroom/closet crying places, and here on this path God spoke to me in feelings too big for words.

We were too busy to say goodbye to everything, and too excited. But I felt it anyway, underneath my skin. Last time dusting this ledge. Last time watching the playhouse light glow across the lawn. Last, last, last. Everything—rooms, furniture, sleeping arrangements—felt mixed-up and strange.

When the time finally came we had two days to move, which was nice. On the first day we had a truck to use from our realtor (that was extremely exciting and the kids ran in and out and up and down nonstop—sometimes actually carrying boxes—though it took Ziggy a couple of hours to actually dare to walk all the way up the ramp into the truck). Our realtor also used to be Goldie's church class teacher, so she was pretty excited to see his enormous face on the moving truck. :)

The next day we had movers come to do the big furniture and the piano and the last of the boxes. They were SO strong and SO tireless. (Their name is The Other Side moving company, actually—they have the coolest mission and purpose. You should read about it.) Ziggy wanted to ask them endless questions ("Are you taking the table apart? Are you carrying the bookshelf?") and they were so kind and patient. I don't know HOW we would have managed this move without them! By that evening the house was looking so empty and so strange. Everything looked bigger and foreign, like we were staying in someone else's house, or like we'd gone back in time—I kept having memories flash across my mind of when we first moved in, with two little preschool boys and a brand new baby.

That night we put the little kids to bed and left some boys at the new house with them, and then stayed up so late cleaning the old house, and Daisy and Junie were amazing helpers. They worked and worked and worked, even when the cordless vacuum ran out of batteries and we had to haul the huge heavy one up onto each stair, and even as we scrubbed every corner and every shelf and every window, and even when we were so tired we wanted to lie down and die. Daisy climbed up on the ledge to dust and scrub. I kept imagining how happy the new owners would be to have everything so clean. (And our glorious bunny room! I have loved it so. I know they'll probably just paint over it, but I loved seeing it unobstructed by furniture one last time.)

It was a REALLY WEIRD feeling to drive away from this dear house knowing it would never be ours again. I shed some tears (silently, so as not to make the girls sad too).

But then there was so much excitement on the other end! The younger kids got to see the new house for the first time in person, and it was so echoing and empty and beautiful and new. And then it filled up with boxes and was so chaotic and cluttered and daunting—and then somehow in a haze of long days and late nights and frazzled hasty fast-food dinners and exhausted sighs of "Just have him wear Goldie's underpants" and "Just put it anywhere for now" and "Just get them into bed without their teeth brushed, then"—this is the part I can't believe we're on the other side of; it's all a blur—the house started to look like our house. Our house, but bigger—lighter—maybe even prettier! And I started to think maybe it all hadn't been such a crazy idea after all.

Things started to seem almost right and familiar again. Babies (labeled "Boy" by someone who got a little too enthusiastic with the label-maker) crawling around. Boys wearing hats, suit coats, and underpants. Kids making "rides" for other kids. Girls reading in strange and unlikely spots. And our food storage room, every item in which I had agonized over having to pack up ("WHY didn't I stop buying pinto beans?") but which I truly love having and is a thing of beauty in this new house. We really will eat all that food within a year, and more will be rotated in.

We had the most glorious weather and ate out on the deck. We played in the backyard—one night I went outside and Junie was playing basketball, Goldie was reading, Teddy was swinging, Ziggy was walking around doing whatever it is he does (?), and Daisy and Sam were working on her Pinewood Derby car. It felt like home.

We watched beautiful sunsets—over our hill, and from our hill. We acquired a part-time cat (such friendly, happy, affectionate cat—he was there almost all the time for those first few weeks, and now we haven't seen him for awhile and we miss him!).

We climbed the hill to watch clouds and storms, and the kids slid down the hill on boxes again and again and again and again.

So here we are. "Settled in," I guess, whatever that means; still pretty astonished at how this year has surprised us over and over and over.  And just about every day I think about Elder Uchtdorf's words from Conference:

Our best days are ahead of us, not behind us. This is why God gives us modern revelation! Without it, life might feel like flying in a holding pattern, waiting for the fog to lift so we can land safely. The Lord’s purposes for us are much higher than that. Because this is the Church of the living Christ…we are moving forward and upward to places we’ve never been, to heights we can hardly imagine!