Neuer Gedankengang!

Am I a grown up now?

I made a big commitment today, and it's the first time I've made a commitment like this on my own. Well, I had a lot of encouragement and advice, but the decision was mine, and the responsibility is mine. I bought a condo. So it makes me feel like a grown up! And it changes the way I look at so many things!

I have a sense of coming home. I know, there is a lot to do between now and when I am actually at home in my new home. But having made the decision to buy and to fix it to suit me and to choose it because it has so many things that are important to me, that feels like coming home. And having a place I own, that I could stay in the rest of my life if I wanted to, that feels good - safe, at home.

I am looking forward to having an outside door that goes to space that is just mine (and that doesn't have a wisteria vine threatening to grab me when I go out!). I am looking forward to having an extra room and to being on the first floor so that my mother (and others!) can come to visit. I am looking forward to having the swimming pool and clubhouse right outside my apartment - and I may actually get moved in while it is still warm enough to use the pool!

Driving around this evening after I got off work I noticed some things that are different. For most of the time that I have been living in Little Rock, two years now, I have been thinking about this apartment as being a stop off to some place I owned or to some place that I rented that had a few things I miss here. And a part of me was always looking for that other place. I would drive around looking at for sale signs and analyzing parts of town and checking out apartments to see what kind of a balcony or patio they actually have. This evening I had to keep reminding myself that I don't have to do that anymore! And I won't be living with one foot in this place and another foot taking a step toward the next place.

I will miss some things about this place. The view out the front windows is great, and a lot different from what I will have at my new place. It is a city street of houses where I can watch people walking by and neighbors working in their yards and fire engines and buses going by. The new view will be of the Arkansas River - not too shabby, I know, but not so much of people as here, and that I will miss.

And I will miss a couple of the neighbors here who have become friends, ones I could count on to keep an eye on things, to notice if they didn't see my car move or hear me moving around, and who would check on me. These people will stay my friends, but having the kind of neighbors who know your routine and look after you, that will take a while at the new place.

I have had a sense of God's hand in the choices I've made since I've been alone. Part of my restlessness about the housing situation was wondering if the little cottage community I envisioned 3 years ago, the first summer I was a widow, was actually what He was leading me toward. I have to admit, that thought was exciting, but also a little scary. Maybe part of the way I feel right now is relief that I am not being asked to make that dramatic of a commitment. Still, that could be the case at some point, but if so, it will take a little different shape than my earlier vision.

I do know that my home, my space, isn't just mine, that it is to be open and to be shared. I did that a little bit here, and I hope to do it even more at my new home. I am very grateful to have what I have, enough and some to share.

posted by Shirley Schuette @ 8:51 PM