Little Gray House

For many people going home is the greatest feeling. It’s were you feel the most loved, most secure, the safest, and truly at ease. It’s the place that you can run to when the outside world is causing you pain, gets you stressed out or upset. The place were just the smell at the front door makes you instantly feel better. Oh how I wish I could run back to my childhood home again and feel all of those things. Wait, I live in my childhood home. So why do I feel like this isn’t my home? Why do I hate walking through the front door most days? Why do I beg my husband to let us move because this home isn’t ours?

For the longest time I never saw the blessing that living in my childhood home truly was; instead I focused on the hurt, pain, anger, suffering, loss, and depression that this home brought me. I found every excuse to not be in this house, now I am living in this house with my husband and our daughter. If I want to be the wife and mother I yearn to be, that I pray that God would shape me into then I honestly know I have to learn to love this home.

Why do I focus on the hurt, pain, anger, suffering, loss and depression I associate with this home. Let me give you the cliff notes version. My mom and step-father bought this home back in 2000, I was roughly 10 years old. The home was bright, full of life, natural lighting, color, and beautiful flowers surrounded this little gray house. In fall 2002 my step-father passed away from cancer, right as my mom was starting to get back on her feet her mother passed away spring of 2004. It took awhile for my mom and I to get back on her feet and we did. She went back to college the same time I started high school. Things were busy for the next few years with us both studying all the time, and then in spring of 2008 my grandfather passed away. When my mom started to get her life back together, she got sick with the seasonal flu and a possible allergic reaction to the medicine. I found her one evening in the back bedroom of our home unresponsive, she was pronounced dead a few hours later by emergency responders. I was in my first semester of college that December of 2009 preparing for finals.

I got back on my feet the only way I knew how, by moving out of the house that I viewed as toxic and somewhat of a curse. I moved in with sweet family friends. I lived with them for 2 years before I got married in May 2011.

Before I got married, I was finally ready to prepare this house to sell. When David and I were first dating he would come over and help me back up boxes, grow thru boxes and place things in storage. It was a really slow process, but I was somewhat excited that the process started. When we found out that we were pregnant in early 2011, we planned to get married in May, we knew we needed a place to live. It seemed like a no brainer, move into this house that I have and it is completely furnished for the most part. I tried so hard to be excited about moving into the house and starting my own family there. I tried to focus on how thankful I was that I hadn’t gotten rid of everything yet, to be truly thankful for God’s timing. As quickly as we moved into the house, the quicker I started to become depressed.

We will have been married for 3 years this May and our sweet girl will be 3 in October. Its time that the depression and sadness it kicked OUT! I am taking over back my home and love it. Enjoy the moments my family is sharing there and enjoying making the home more MINE and not my mothers. Gasp!

This blog is to really hold myself accountable, to move forward in loving my home. Be raw and real with my emotions and how I’m truly doing with this, along with the fun of posting the process and helpful hints I learn along the way.