If you guys are following us over on INSTAGRAM, you probably caught on to the fact that we moved recently! Over the course of the year and four months that we’ve been married, this is actually the third place we’ve lived together, which is kind of crazy to me. After we got married, I moved in to our first place, where Luke lived for about a month before we got married. Three months after that, during our busiest month of the entire year, we found out we had a major issue with that place. So, we were forced to move into a new place… and we had to do it in two days. (Sounds fun, right? It wasn’t. ;)) Then, we decided to move yet again this fall, and over the past few weeks that’s consumed our lives a whole bunch!
I don’t know about you guys, but moving stresses me out. This girl does NOT do moving well. I remember a few weeks back when I was sitting next to my mom at church, and she asked me how packing was going. I literally almost started CRYING when I began describing all the boxes that we beginning to pile up in our then living room. Ha! That’s how I handle this stuff, y’all… NOT well. Unless I’m extremely busy, I’m pretty picky about organization, how our home looks, everything having a place, and so on. I’m extremely impacted by my environment and how everything looks and feels, and when you toss that in with working from a home office, sister needs her home looking halfway decent in order to feel peaceful, more often than not. 😉
Here’s the thing, though. We’ve only ever moved across town when Luke and I have moved together, but we HAVE moved three times in less than a year and a half. And all that settling and resettling, packing and unpacking has taught me some things about marriage. Or at least I like to think it has. 🙂
And the main thing it’s taught me is that a quote I read a while back is completely and totally true for my life:
“You know you’re in love when home becomes a person.”
Even though we’ve lived three different places together already, each of those has felt like “home” to me from day one. For someone who clearly has issues with moving (enter my description of myself CRYING describing piles of boxes), that’s kind of remarkable. And the only way I believe this is possible is because home, to me, is not the place we’re living anymore. It’s not whether we have decorations on the walls, towels organized, or even dishes put away in the cabinets that means I’m finally home, moved in and settled. It’s the fact that Luke is here with me, and with him is where I feel most at home.
If you haven’t noticed by now, this life moves QUICKLY. It feels like just yesterday that I moved the last of my things into our first home together after our wedding, and now here we are on place number 3 with every box unpacked in a brand new neighborhood. And what moving has taught me about marriage is that it’s not about the place you’re moving to, it’s about the person you’re building a life with. I’m thankful that we’ve moved 3 times in 1.5 years because it’s allowed me to learn earlier than I might have that home is a person.
So if you’re getting ready to get married and move in together for the first time or even buy a home to live in after you get married, be encouraged that your new home will never feel as much like home as the person you’ll be sharing it with. And that’s what allows you to eat dinners on the floor surrounded by boxes and stay up late organizing your new home together… because it’s about you and your marriage, not the move.
