Moving

I have lived in many places during my 19 year existence.

1. A cottage in Aurora, OR (0-1). My parents lived here when I was born.
2. An apartment in Manila, Philippines (1-2). My parents were missionaries with an organization.
3. A house in Manila, Philippines (2-4).
4. An apartment in Wilsonville, OR (4-5). My parents decided that living and raising a child overseas was too stressful.
5. A house in Charlotte, NC (5-6). My dad worked at the mission base here.
6. Another house in Charlotte, NC (6-11).
7. A house in Wheaton, IL (11-13). My mom decided to get her PhD at Wheaton College.
8. A house in Oregon City, OR (13-16). My parents wanted to move back to where my dad grew up and where they met (this was the plan all along).
9. Another house in Oregon City, OR (16). My mom got a teaching job in Canada, so my family moved to Alberta. I stayed behind to finish my senior year. I moved in with friends.
10. Another house in Oregon City, OR (16-17). After living in my friend's house for 8 months, I needed change. I moved in with an older couple in town for the last 6 months until college. I consider this house to be home.
11. George Fox University dorms (17).
12. A house in Castle Rock, CO (17-18). I took a medical leave and went to stay with my grandparents.
13. George Fox University dorms (18)
14. A house in Newberg (18-19). I got married and rented a room with my husband in a local house.
15. Soon: an apartment in Newberg. My husband and I found an affordable apartment and want to make a space our own.

This list is part of my story. My identity has been shaped by a wide variety of people and places, and I will always be grateful for them.

I have very few memories of the early homes. I have favorites (10, 11, 13, 14), where I lived with people I loved deeply and fully. I have least favorites (7, 9) where I failed to connect and struggled to squeeze myself into the space around me.

This variety of experiences has shown me what I want and need in a home. I found a partner who I want in my space, and I fit easily in his. This makes making a home easier; I have someone to work at it with who shares my vision for what a home should be. Jake needs a full-sized refrigerator and lots of blankets; I need a dishwasher and lots of places for friends to sit.

My husband and I did #14 together, and now we get to do #15 together. I wonder how many homes we will fill with love and laughter.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 9, 2020 at 8:22 PM

    Hey Ana,

    I enjoyed the format of your post this week. I wonder how much of the list off of past dwellings was a test of memory? Also, I am very excited for your next home. I am not sure how much you enjoy change, but I imagine doing this with your husband will likely be enjoyable.

    - Garin

    ReplyDelete
  2. Melanie Springer MockApril 14, 2020 at 11:48 AM

    This is an impressive list, and a lot of moving around. I hope you will find stability and peace in your latest move. What an odd time to be setting down roots in a new place! Good post: I like the creativity of this activity.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Perfect Sentence

There are no pretty-good sentences. They are either perfect or incredibly awful. Silence filled the dark stillness with a frigid air that bit my skin, and I shivered despite the weighty cloak I bore. Icy sweat trickled down my back as I struggled to breathe. Can you tell which of those sentences is perfect and which is incredibly awful? You may be able to guess. But you won't be able to know in the way that I know. I can tell you are simply quaking with anticipation, so I will tell you which sentence is which, and I will do my best to explain why. The first sentence is perfect because the room was silent, because the room wasn't full of emptiness but of silence, and because the room was terribly dark, and terribly still. The air was frigid, and it was the silence that filled the room with the frigid air. The air didn't brush my skin, and it didn't tickle my skin. It bit my skin. The cloak I wore wasn't heavy, but it was weighty. In fact, I didn't wear it...
Read more

Hevel

Ecclesiastes 1:2 Life is fleeting, like a passing mist. It is like trying to catch hold of a breath. Hevel. Vapor. Mist. This is the word the author of Ecclesiastes chose to describe life. Life for himself? Life for humanity? Life for all things living? He doesn’t specify. A New Testament author uses a similar word in Greek to describe the lives of his readers. “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes,” he writes in James 4:14. Normally, I read the Bible with my fuzzy gray blanket wrapped tightly around me, keeping the words at a distance. These verses, though, penetrated the gray fuzz. I found them comforting. I don’t have to craft my life into a perfect sculpture for the keepers of eternity to criticize or place value on. I’m just here for now, and then I will be gone. If I am like most people, I will be easily forgotten. The stakes, then, aren’t as high as everyone says. The transience of life as mist mist brings ...
Read more

The Tale of the Longer Recess

When I finished reading the last page of Heidi , I stood up and stretched, bumping my head against the plastic red slide. I stepped into the sunlight, shading my eyes with my hand. I squinted, searching for my classmates. Older children from the third grade dominated the playground, as usual, and most of them were chasing or being chased. I didn’t see my teacher, but I could spot Frank, a quiet boy from my class. If he was still playing, that meant my class hadn’t climbed the hill back to school yet. I walked in circles, kicking bark chips and looking for my friends. Sweat dripped down my neck and I started breathing faster. I didn’t want to ask Frank where everyone had gone. But as the minutes crawled by, I knew that was my only option. I considered approaching a teacher I didn’t know, but the pit in my gut told me that I couldn’t betray Mrs. Welbourne by asking another teacher for help. Finally, I tapped Frank on the shoulder. He whipped around, and my heart stopped beating. Alth...
Read more