Domesticity break

As I wrote on Facebook last night, the new house is consuming my every waking moment (and some sleeping ones, too) with careful, considered, affectionate thoughts.

Light fixtures. Wallpaper. Flooring. Paint in all thirteen rooms. Every place I look, I see dollar signs, and I'm starting to get a tight little feeling, just under my ribs. A feeling, I'm sure, that's familiar to many of you. The realization that this is, in fact, a journey, and my perfect vision of our house will take awhile to articulate. And that's okay, because we'll have awhile to live in it, love it, make it ours.

But in the meantime. In the meantime, I'm carefully unraveling Binghamton's hold on my heart, one fragile little strand at a time. Thinking about all the things I'll miss-- our fireplace, our huge porches, our friends nearby, and our second home just around the corner.

Mostly, I do this thinking in the kitchen. I do this while walking back from my little garden-up-the-street as fat November raindrops pelt my head. I do this while turning a pan of roasted veggies in the oven, and reminiscing about all the terrific meals I've had and hosted in this house. This is the beginning of the transition, this time right here.

As ferociously as I'm looking forward to making our home in Gilbertsville, as starved for open spaces as I've sometimes felt in Binghamton, there's a lot of attachment here, a lot of memories. I'm going to take my time with them, like putting the Christmas ornaments away after the holidays are done.

This is where I moved into, from Ithaca, when I was twenty-three. With my boyfriend. This is the house we came home to, together, with a bottle of wine and a brand-new sparkly ring on my finger, to drink and celebrate by the fire. I had a last long soak in our (now removed) clawfoot tub, the day before our wedding, and earlier in that week we'd rolled up the rugs and I'd given Patrick a waltzing lesson in our living room, to practice for our first dance. This is where we came home from our honeymoon to, where I asked Patrick to carry me over the threshold. It's been just four short years, but it's seen so much living. So many life events.

Our timeline for making the move is pretty soft-- so much depends on jobs, you know-- but we're thinking it'll be in about six months, after we've addressed some of the house's quirks and made cosmetic changes. It's going to be a busy winter, to say the least. One filled with paint buckets and spackle knives, work clothes and long drives and a whole lot of firsts. Gilbertsville is an hour from Binghamton, and I expect we'll be wearing the treads clean off my tires with the trip.

All for the new place, for where our memories will be made for many years to come.