Chapters and Memories

Our apartment is looking less and less like our home, and more and more like a room with four walls. I keep reminding myself that all of the things that helped make our space the cozy, comfortable place it has been get to come with us. That helps. But, it's what has happened within these four walls that is making it difficult to think about leaving. We're "packing up the memories, too" as my mom said. And, that's the hard part. We've had some wonderful times here, and most of my memories from our first year of marriage are from our time in this first little home of ours....

I think on some level I've associated being married with living in St. Louis...that's how it has been since the beginning! We drove up here the day after the wedding and started building our life together. To move away means to end a chapter of our marriage. (That we've been married long enough to have chapters is strange--and wonderful--in and of itself!) But, I suppose this is where the real heart of being married comes into play. It's incredible to start a life...but to build on that life, to change, to adapt, to start a new chapter...that's where the "we're husband & wife, and we're doing LIFE together" aspect becomes real. After all, a marriage is built on chapters, isn't it? Beginning and ending them...together.

As much as we longed to be closer to home so often this past year, I wouldn't trade our time away for anything. We are called to "leave and cleave"...and boy, did we ever cleave?! For better or worse, by living in St. Louis as newlyweds, Bobby and I were forced able to completely rely on each other, spending time together, uninterrupted by other relationships and distractions that exist in our hometown. I doubt we recognized it all the time, but I think we benefited greatly by our time away and all the time we had to spend together.

Certainly, we have dearly missed our friends and family, and being able to be around all of them again is undeniably the biggest reason we're moving home. We are both so very excited to have the opportunity to spend our Friday nights going out to dinner with friends, and I know Bobby will very much enjoy playing football with 'The Guys' on random weeknights. But, a part of me is very much going to miss our Friday night routine of pizza, beer, and a movie. Admittedly, it's been...fun...to have Bobby all to myself.

We'll still have plenty of time to ourselves, I'm sure. But, it will be different, and likely less frequent than it has been here. I'm confident that our relationship is such that we can willingly "share" one another with other people that value spending time with us as individuals, and that we'll value our time alone together all the more. Our year in St. Louis has strengthened our marriage; I'm curious to see what life in Springfield will look like for us as we continue our life together there.

What an exciting time ahead! For now, though, I'm just going to continue the deep-cleaning process, and look forward to one last quiet night in this cozy, first home of ours...amid a whole bunch of boxes and a whole lot of memories.

I'm thankful to have lived in St. Louis.
I'm thankful to be moving back to Springfield.
I'm thankful to be sharing life with my husband, beginning and ending chapters...together.