Day 266: The Keys

The idea that I actually own a house hasn’t really sunk in until today. It’s just been this floating fact without much substance. I wasn’t totally grounded, and the first time I opened the door with the keys didn’t feel real. It still didn’t feel like mine. But once I turned into my subdivision today, my stomach started tingling. Reality and excitement were hitting me for the first time. I looked around as I drove, knowing that this would become familiar quickly. And when I opened the garage door for the first time, it started to feel like home.

It will still be a week or two until I am able to sleep there, I think. I still need to get a bed, table and chairs, side tables, garbage can, etc, etc, and all the million little things that accumulate in a house. There’s some painting and woodwork that I would like to do before moving everything in, just to make it easier. During that period of fixing things up, I think that feeling of home will grow and grow.

Big life changes, good and bad, seem to have a surreal feel to them for the first moments, like they aren’t really happening or we are reading about ourselves in a story. I kind of wish I felt like a kid opening the PS2 for the first time. Instead, I feel like I’m 34 and opening a new set of power tools. Sure, I’m super happy, but I’m not jumping up and down, screaming about how I need to play with them right now!

What the hell happened to me?

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Author’s Note #1: My home will not be complete until I have a sign on the front door that reads, “Home, Crap, Home.”