Fear of Change

We move into our house the week of Thanksgiving.  It is all boxes and umpteen carloads of junk piled up to the roof of the car and on the roof of the car and several moving truck’s worth of additional items that then take up space in rooms and corners.

It’s been a few years since we’ve been homeowners.  The stress of lender calls and papers to sign a vague memory that seems exciting and grows tedious.  But still, we move forward, packing, planning, painting, planning.  Then there is the wall that must come down the day we move in, because boxes piled four high is not enough chaos there must be dust and wires sticking out of the floor.

Through it all, my parents in the background ushering my children in and out of the front door to eat, to play, to visit someone else’s house that doesn’t have holes in the wall, floor, ceiling.

At night, we all fall into half-made beds too tired to care that sheets don’t fit, blankets are missing, pillows are coverless.

In the morning I face endless boxes in every room and wonder how I will unpack them all and where it will all go.  I’ve done this so may times but somehow this is the time I am left paralyzed.  Self-doubt plagues me.  It’s all gone too fast.  We’ve waited too long.  The time is not right.  Spins through my head on a loop and I trip on the hole in the floor, plunk down on the carpet and gaze around me at my blessings disguised as fear.

This is not me.  Tomorrow I will empty more boxes.  The day after, even more boxes.  Until every box is empty.  And sometime soon, the holes will be covered up, shiny paint erasing even the memory of them, and time will pass in our new home, old home, home.