Closing The Door
The old saying goes, "When one door closes, another door opens." I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Recently, we've seen a lot of doors open up in front of us, and I had kind of forgotten about the impact of the one's closing. But that's how it goes. That's how life works, and we can end up living with a lot of bittersweetness.
On Saturday, we did the final clean of our house in Oklahoma. We left on Sunday for Punta Cana, and I am looking at a lovely and distracting view while writing this. The pool is calling my name. But, once we return to Oklahoma, the house will no longer be ours. We pre-signed closing documents before we left town and the new owners will sign on Wednesday.
I definitely cried the last time I walked out of our house. I know a house is just a house. It's the memories and the people inside of it that make it home. But we certainly made this house a home.
It was our first house. It was the first one we bought, which was a new experience for both of us. It's where I survived our deployment. It's where I truly launched my dream. It's where we brought our son home. It's where we've watched him grow up. We've made some incredible memories in that place.
And I know it's time to go. We are being called to a new place to make new memories. We would have outgrown that house one day anyway. It was never going to be our forever home. But it's still sad to think we are saying goodbye to those walls.
We've been so lucky as a military family that we stayed in the same home for three years. It would have been four if we had moved into that house immediately. I know there are a lot of families that can't say the same. I also see a lot of families who would love to get out of where they live.
I'm really excited about this move. I'm ready to decorate a new house. I'm ready to build on our life. I'm ready to meet new friends and be closer to old ones. My husband is ready to learn a new mission. He's ready to tackle a new job. He's ready to be on a platform that is equipped for everyday success. My son has no clue what's going on. He's only one, but I know he will be very excited to move into a house with stairs. Please let me know if you've got good baby gate recommendations.
I lived in three houses growing up. The most impactful move was when I was nine. We moved from the house I had lived in for six years (so most of my memorable life) to a home that was a few hours away. In a lot of ways, this move mirrors that. We are moving into a bigger house and closer to family, albeit the move when I was a child took me from 2 hours away from my grandparents to 20 minutes, but the concepts are similar. I remember the night before we left that house, I ripped up a few pieces of the shag carpet to take with me as a reminder.
I didn't take anything from the Oklahoma house other than a key. I would like to remember it in some way. I'd love a collection of all the houses we've lived in if anyone knows of a good way to do that. A piece of me will always be in that house, though. Before my son was born, I wrote affirmations on every inch of his walls. We painted over them before listing the house because, in the words of the stager, "it will photograph a little busy in here." It was busy, for sure. But those words are still there. Just a few layers of paint to be scrapped away, and it's still all mine.
Most military families move a lot. My husband's dad was active duty for twenty and managed to only move twice, so my husband does not fit the traditional Air Force brat model. But that is a rarity. We will probably move 5-6 times across my husband's career, and I know that's also on the low end for many families. Sometimes, it will be a move that excites us, and sometimes, it will devastate us.
I do believe that there is a bright side to everything, but that's not the point of this post. The point is that sometimes it sucks to say goodbye, even if it's what you want. I know this is how my husband felt before his deployment. He wanted to go. He wanted to do the job that he had trained for. He wanted to serve his country. But he also wanted to be with me. It was hard to say goodbye even though it was exactly where he wanted to be.
That's how it is with our dreams. They demand sacrifices. Everything in life does. Hopefully, we gain enough authority and autonomy in our lives that we get to choose what we sacrifice, but it's always going to be hard. That's what sacrifice means. If it was easy to let go of, then it wasn't that important to begin with.
Writing from Punta Cana is a dream come true. We took our son on his first international trip and are here with my whole family (which means lots of babysitters). We are celebrating my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary and Nana's 80th birthday. It's really special, but it still required sacrifices.
This trip used up the last of my husband's leave so that we can't be with family for Christmas. It pushed up our move-out timeline, which was very stressful; granted, that would have been stressful and rushed regardless of when it happened. And it costs money, which does limit the choices we can make going forward for a bit. I'm here to say that it's worth it, and it's also ok if it sucks a little bit.
When it gets hard, try to remember that life is hard. Pretty much everything, good or bad, ends up being hard at some point. I know that's not the most comforting sentiment. What's comforting about that is that we get to choose our hard. And sure, sometimes that feels a little bit like self-inflicted torture when our dream demands a sacrifice, but it was going to be hard regardless, so we might as well go hard in the direction of our dreams; at least, that's how I feel about it.