I headed to the laundromat a little later than I had originally planned so my sunset run by the water became an run lit by the glow of the city at night and it was kind of nice, though I don’t plan on making it a habit because running in the dark has never ever been my favorite.  Yesterday, though, it was just what I needed.

We spent more than three straight hours in the garage yesterday and it is really coming together.  After a few more trips to the Home Depot, we should have enough shelving and containers to get everything out of cardboard and into well-organized bins.  This is something I have been meaning to do for years and I’m ecstatic that it is finally happening.  After so many hasty moves and so much residential instability, I cannot explain to you the sense of peace that comes with this gesture of ordering our belongings and settling into a dwelling place.

In our nearly ten years together, B and I have moved sixteen times.  The transitions have not been the most graceful, and our homes have reflected a certain kind of underlying impermanence.  I am working harder than ever to abolish this and replace it with steady, rooted warmth.  At first, I thought this need to nest came from a desire to give my children the kind of home in which they’ve yet to live.  As I get deeper into the process, however, I’m realizing this impulse comes from a desire to provide myself with the kind of home in which I have yet to live.

During the ten years before I met B, I moved at least thirteen times, and all the years prior to then were spent shuffling between two separate households, each characterized by their own kind of capriciousness.  When I think about all of this, I can begin to understand why I’ve never been particularly good at moving, unpacking, all of it – I never learned how to craft a welcoming home because I never had a home in which I felt welcome.

Coronavirus has taught us all about the importance of adaptability, about maing the best of a bad situation for the sake of survival.  For me, that has meant honoring the space that holds the ones I love, including myself.  Living through this quarantine has completely shifted my perspective on the importance of a thoughtfully curated living environment: it is not a luxury, it is a necessity.  The quality of a well-made home has the potential to instill a sense of both security and beauty into those it houses, and I have made it my job to bring this awareness into every place I live for the rest of my days.

As I rounded the corner back toward our little apartment at the end of my run last night, I could see the lights glowing from within.  I thought about the hours we’d spent earlier in the day, pulling years of stored stuff out from their decrepit tombs and into the sunlight of a bright May morning.  The muscles in my arms swinging at my side were sore and fatigued from the weight of all the boxes they’d carried, but my heart, pounding from the exertion of a three-miler, had never felt lighter.