It's Official...

...Anna and I have a new home again, as of 5 pm last night. 

Our new home sweet home:

I don't know that it really feels real. As a widow--and especially after the first year of it, as I'd make various different attempts to improve my circumstances, emotions, and life--my stance toward life has certainly become one of trial and error: I'll try something for a while, and then reevaluate and see how it's gone. Some things have worked, most haven't, and then I move on to the next attempt. 

I've tried so many different things that I don't have many expectations (a part of me wants to say "hopes"...but that's a tad too pessimistic to say I don't have many hopes...perhaps it's more accurate to say I don't have too many preconceived hopes) how they'll work out. I always hope that the things I try will turn out for the better, help things out in some way...but the results have always been so mixed--more complicated and with more confliction or negatives than I expected--that I'm not nearly so naively besotted with a perceived possible "happy ending."

I wasn't really a black-or-white, all-or-nothing person before Charley died. I knew there were shades of gray, and saw them in situations. But since being widowed, I've certainly become an expert on the endless, subtle variations and nuances of all those shades of gray. And I've learned that it's hard to know which version of gray is really the best.

So...in other words, I'll wait and see how this all goes. 

So my house has closed, and we'll be moving in in spurts over the next week. The PODS storage container was delivered this morning, and I assume it's already sitting in my driveway. The moving company is delivering my furniture Wednesday morning. The plan is to paint Anna's bedroom this weekend (I'm leaving the rest of the house as it is, but I know my child--okay, and me too--wouldn't really be happy with a boring tan-painted, neutral-colored little girl's bedroom), and we'll be staying with my parents until we get furniture. 

I'm a little wary that I'm not more excited. I don't know that I really have a reaction. Partially it's because it doesn't feel very real. But particularly after having to deal with the ever-changing whims and vagaries of my irritating buyers--and either to a lesser, or possibly a greater, degree, after surviving the roller coaster ride of the last 3 1/2+ years of widowhood--I don't really put much stock into things working out the way they're "supposed" to. It's more that I form an opinion and reaction in hindsight, over time.

It's not how I used to be. But for better or worse, it's how I've become in my widowhood.

And I know part of my reaction--or lack of one--right now is borne a little bit out of disappointment. I like the house I just bought, and it was the best of the ones I saw...and I had no interest in endless waiting or looking, in the mere hope that something better might eventually come along. Because I know perfectly well that something better might not actually come along, or if it did, it could come at too high of a cost...either literally or metaphorically. I'm certainly more inclined now to simply pick the best option available to me at the time, and not holding out for things in an unknown future.

Your husband dying when you're 27 years old and taking with him the future you'd always planned on certainly trains you to understand, at a very fundamental level, that you can't rely on anything unknown in the future.

Unfortunately.

So I like my new house, and I know it was the best one available for us at the time. But the teensy eensy little problem is that I liked the house I wrote the offer on in January a lot better. 

It certainly had its quirks, but everything was already done on it...new windows; carpets in the bedrooms (I love wood floors and my new house has gorgeous refinished hardwoods--which I love--but there is no carpet anywhere in the house, and I much prefer carpet in bedrooms...so I have to buy area rugs...translation: more money); a bigger, already updated kitchen; a fantastic, already landscaped yard; a huge paver patio.

And my new house has none of those things, yet. So unfortunately when I look at it,  I like the house...but all I see at the moment are a lot of dollar signs. And a lot of work. 

Maybe I'm still just totally burnt out on the whole process of moving and selling. A little too fried still to work up enthusiasm for more work in the immediate future.

But...I am excited for Anna to have a nice, big yard to play in. I'm excited to live closer in to civilization, to be able to go do things or meet people without an hour of driving each way. I'm excited to have a smaller house to keep clean. And I'm looking forward to when all the work on the house is done and it's just the way I want it.

But I don't know how much patience I have for how long that might take, since I'll have to be really careful about any money for the bigger projects like replacing the teensy, tiny kitchen or getting a patio big enough for more than one chair to sit on. For the cosmetic things that often make a bigger difference to my satisfaction than boring things like a new roof.

Stupid awful economy.

But I am excited to see how things will turn out, to see if moving back into civilization--a plan I first started cooking up about 18 months ago, and really started investigating and putting in place in earnest a year ago--makes as big of a difference as I thought it would. 

And I like decorating, so I imagine my enthusiasm will grow as I can actually start moving into the house and making it ours. Can start having a normal life again, instead of one in constant packing/moving/in limbo flux.

Wish us luck!