I started this post a month ago but hadn't had a chance to finalize my thoughts and edit it. So here is the final draft.
"Tonight I found myself lingering on the happy feeling of having my bedroom unpacked and having hung something on a wall (and yes, I do mean one thing on one wall). It took six weeks but who's counting? I'm sitting in my new bedroom thinking that it must be too good to be true.
In our old house, I didn't have a bedroom to call my own for a year. It wasn't an ideal house for us from the get go but we were in a time crunch as we had sold our house and needed to be out. We literally signed the lease a few days before we closed escrow. Our master bedroom was upstairs and the two extra bedrooms were downstairs, one for my son and the other was MSTBE's office (my daughter hadn't even been conceived when we moved in). My son was 10 months old and I was still nursing him at night at least a couple of times. I didn't want to chug up and down the stairs several times per night so I slept in the office. Three months later, I was pregnant with my daughter and two months after that, my son started sleeping through the night (with a lot of help and training). I could have moved into the master with MSTBE upstairs but I was finally getting a good night's sleep after over fifteen months of waking countless times and I was dealing with first trimester exhaustion. And MSTBE was an awful sleeper - he fidgeted and his nose squeaked and I am an incredibly light sleeper. So I continued to sleep in the office. And then things took a turn for the worse in our relationship again so I kept sleeping in the office. Things were up and down but I never had the desire to move up into the master. And when my daughter was born, the office became her bedroom. And four days after she was born, the bomb d word was dropped and things were worse than they had ever been. (Yes, MSTBE dropped the d word four days after my daughter was born, on 4/20/13. I will never forget that date. It was the worst day of my life, by far.) So I slept in her room with her for the remaining year of our lease (a good nine months of which were just living out the lease knowing that we were calling it quits).
It was pretty difficult not having a place to call my own during the worst time in our marriage. When the kids went to sleep at 7 pm, I was stuck spending the rest of the evening in the living room whether I wanted to be or not. I had no place to hide. I ended up going to sleep really early for quite a long time, partly because I was avoiding MSTBE and partly because my kids were the worst sleepers as babies. I needed to go to sleep at 8:30 pm because of all of the upcoming wake ups otherwise I wouldn't be able to function the next day.
So when I say that it seems too good to be true, I really mean it. I have this big mater bedroom with a small sitting area, a huge walk in closet all to myself (I have so much space that I hang my scarves, my bras, my purses, and all of my skinny clothes as motivation), and a bathroom and vanity area that isn't filled with kid's toys. I've decorated it with my favorite water color paintings from my first trip to Italy and an old painting that I had hanging in my condo long before I met MSTBE. I bought some pretty pillows for my bed and have a color scheme that I love with a beautiful deep turquoise lamp, among other things. I'm incredibly happy with the house that we're in and plan on staying here five years while I save to buy a house.
As I'm feeling all of these great feelings, I think, "What's going to happen in this house?" There are so many possibilities. Will I fall in love in this house? I hesitate to even think that let alone type it. What will happen with my babies, the loves of my lives, in this house? What does this house have in store for me as a woman and for us as a family? It's such an exhilarating and happy question to ask and I'm so excited to learn the answers, day by day."
I'm feeling even more content tonight as I've finished decorating my room, I unpacked the last three lingering boxes, and I have hung pictures in my baby girl's room. I have a few finishing touches left to do in the kiddos' rooms and pictures to hang in the hallway but that's about it. This house is beginning to feel more and more like a home.
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