Two years ago this week, we were in Virginia getting ready for our wedding.

It had rained Monday through Thursday and I was trying not to panic about our outdoor ceremony being muddy. It ended up being one of those perfect spring weekends, though, where the rain cools everything down and then clears up and it's 70 degrees and sunny and the whole world smells like fresh-cut grass and rainfall. 

This weekend it rained again. We packed. I wrote for hours. We spent two hours loading the car and bringing things over to our new house. And then we returned to the apartment, popped a small bottle of Veuve Clicquot, poured two glasses, and got ready for dinner at Kindred, our favorite place in North Carolina. We ordered drinks and tore into the best bread you could imagine and giggled as our server brought out plate after plate: a beautiful little salad, duck fat potatoes, crispy fried oysters, beef tartare, and homemade pasta.

We left the restaurant in the rain and drove about 15 minutes down the road to where my mom was for the weekend. A quick hug on the sidewalk, and then it was back to Kindred to sit at the bar for a pisco sour and a slice of cake, which came out with a lit candle. I blew it out with Rob's hand in mine and thought about what wishes I could possibly even have at this point.

We have so many changes and transitions coming up that at times it feels like I can't keep my head above water, but we have a happy, healthy family; a sweet pup that brightens our day, exciting job opportunities presenting themselves to us regularly, and; no matter what, each other.

On Sunday we drove over to our new place and I cooked lunch and dinner in the kitchen. Rob sat at the kitchen table watching the NBA Playoff and my mom puttered around, unpacking dishes and folding linens. Ender went in and out as he pleased, frolicking through the fenced-in backyard like he couldn't even believe his luck.

May really can be magical.

I wrote this post over a year ago and thought about it again yesterday.

When we first moved to Charlotte we were full of the uncertainty that can sometimes come with settling down for the first time. "Is this it? What's next?" Like I've mentioned before, I had gotten so used to planning for the next thing that I found just sitting in the present moment to be a bit of a challenge.

And yet, through my parents splitting up and moving, my mom's second cancer diagnosis and subsequent surgeries, and my own health issues, somehow I managed to find a way to put roots down. To get up in the morning and brew coffee and start my day and make lunch for my husband and find friends and schedule regular dentist appointments. I sit at my desk and write, and twice a day I walk down the hall and let our neighbor's dog out. On Fridays Rob and I take Ender to Atherton Market for coffee at our favorite place, and on Sundays we sleep in and then watch a documentary while we eat breakfast.

It's been almost two years and we have managed to create a life here.

The other day I felt a random compulsion to check Craigslist for rental houses. Rob and I talk a lot about moving into a house when our lease is up, but that's not until August so every time we look we always remind ourselves that it's too early. And I fall in love with every property that has more light and a bigger kitchen than our current apartment, so I push the laptop away and say "let's just wait." 

But sure enough there we were the next day, walking through a house and picturing ourselves living in it. The kitchen with a window over the sink and the third bedroom where you could put a desk or maybe a baby; and the fenced-in backyard where Ender could run. 

We magically managed to wrangle up a summer sublease for our apartment and I was practically starting to pack when the landlord texted me the next morning to say that he had already rented the house to whoever saw it earlier that day before. And I cried in my car, over this house that I visited once and fell in love with the idea of even though it's in a neighborhood I don't really like that much. 

We've spent two years focusing on the present, but I can feel the tide coming in and pulling me back out to what's next, and next, and next after that.

“I’m coming home to the lights and buzz
Streets look the same, still nothing’s as it was
This place is paradise I’m sure, here’s my reservation
I’ve gotten lost here once before
Inside a good vibration ”

— The Lights and Buzz, Jack's Mannequin

Two boxes. A wedding dress. 

There was a bit more but that was most of it. Eleven years of memories packed into two boxes full of notebooks, letters, and tattered disposable camera film. I packed it snugly into the back of our small SUV and marveled at the weather--unseasonably warm, 77 degrees and sunny in mid-December.

My parents' marriage fell apart in a way that was so complex and maddening that I couldn't even begin to describe it. And yet I always knew that moving out of that house would be the hardest part for me. Ironic as it may sound, you can see a toxic relationship but a house is a house and it still holds some of the best memories long after your dad has left and your mom has packed everything up.

Takeout sushi and pizza in the open frame with my mom, dad, brother, and then-boyfriend while the house was being constructed--we'd walk around and picture which rooms were which and take in the gorgeous views of the lake while the sun set. Week-long sleepovers with my best friend Emma, sharing clothes and laughing until our stomachs ached and whispering back and forth in bed until sleep overtook us. High school weekends with friends, gathered around the kitchen island by day and sprawled next to each other on the couch by night. The time I left my door to the back porch unlocked so Patrick could come into my bedroom and say goodbye the morning he left for college (I forgot about the alarm and when he opened the door it went off, calling the police and everything).

There were fall and winter breaks home from school, visits from friends who lived out of town, and the feeling that anyone and everyone was welcome to the house at any time, for any reason, as long as they were willing to eat until they felt sick. It was my landing pad after graduate school when Rob was working in DC and I didn't know what I wanted to do with my career. It has always been a safe space to rest, until recently.

We celebrated our engagement at the house, I tried on my wedding dress for the first time at the house--surrounded by my mom, our wonderful neighbor and friend Linda, and my best friend and maid-of-honor Tina--and after our wedding, all the people I love in the world gathered together for brunch at the house.

My mom and I, always morning people, would wake up before everyone else and drink coffee at the island or in the sunroom or sometimes on the deck outside. She came home to this house after a double mastectomy, and my brother and I walked her through recovery as best we could, doling out pain meds and retreating to the basement to eat chips and watch Parenthood while she slept. It was the hardest two weeks of my life and yet I look back on it with nothing but gratitude.

This was the house where Rocky lived, and after he died I came home for Christmas and felt his absence so profoundly that I cried big, fat, devastated tears before I could even set my bags down. I was sitting in the kitchen when my friend Andy called to tell me that our friend Zach had unexpectedly passed away. Everything happened here.

So when my parents split up, I felt mostly fine. But when I swept the bare floor of the living room that used to echo with laughter instead of emptiness, I didn't feel fine anymore.

I know we'll always have the memories, and I know even more confidently that we'll make new ones. I have two boxes and a wedding dress to remind me of that.

But I'll miss the house.