#076 - Bringing Home to our House

In 36 hours, we'll pack up our stuff and leave Charlotte, and we won't see it again until July. This has left me feeling pretty anxious, at least to the point where I'm making use of this time to write about it.

I have my moments where I still can't decide what place exactly "feels like home". There are days when I wake up and I can't believe I'm out of Philadelphia, let alone all the way in North Carolina. Charlotte doesn't necessarily have the same emotional pull for me that Philly does, even now -- but let me clarify, I mean Charlotte the city itself. The things that I have here in Charlotte are phenomenal, and I'd never be able to get by without them -- Siobhan, Alfie, our house, our friends -- but the city itself doesn't hold the same type of meaning (yet). I don't get the same excitement from seeing the skyline, or from approaching the airplane landing, as I do in Philly. It doesn't necessarily mean I want to move back. There are things here that I love and wouldn't want to leave, like Siobhan's job that she's become very invested in, the neighborhood that we live in and the future growth that is going to happen, the fact that we were able to buy a great house for an affordable price with a nice backyard, our growing dog sitting business, the warmth and lack of snow shoveling, and my growing comfort with managing my time while working at home. It's all great, and I would say that it's been an awesome experience, but honestly, I think the "experience" ended after about 6 months, and now it's just life.

So it was definitely a welcome sight this past month to have so many family members come down and visit us in our new home. My mom scheduled a visit for the weekend after we moved in, which was awesome because it was the first time she had come to see us and she didn't have to stay in our frat-party apartment building. At first I was worried that we would still be in the process of moving and our house would be a wreck, but it was actually great timing because we moved in fairly quickly and she was able to be here to help us settle in a little bit and put some home-y touches on.

Two weeks later, my sister Ashley flew down for a work event, which is just a crazy coincidence because Charlotte's the only place outside of Philadelphia that her job operates. It was a little bit bittersweet for her I'm sure because she was here on Mother's Day away from her kids, but it was awesome to hang out with her in some beautiful weather, sitting outside at the brewery with a break from being a mom. Thankfully by this time we had all our cable and internet set up so I didn't have to drive back to the apartment during the day to work, but unfortunately this was when our air conditioning decided to stop working. We had it assessed through our home warranty and they determined it needed a new evaporator coil, which I assumed would only take a few days to replace (uh huh, try three weeks). I was a bit concerned that we were going to be welcoming in my sister to our sweltering house and she wouldn't be able to sleep the night before her work event, but luckily it wasn't terribly hot and I rented a couple window A/C units to keep it comfortable. She was kind enough to invite us out to the charity fundraiser dinner she coordinated the next day at a nearby Country Club, which was quite an experience -- turns out the wealthy, successful and generous can tell a good story or two. I'd like to give them a quick plug right now, not for any reason except that I think what they do is great and not pretentious or self-serving in any way, and also my sister is the steady locomotive that keeps the operation running and I'm incredibly proud of her. It's called Michael's Way and they help fund out of pocket expenses for families of sick children: http://www.michaelsway.org/

With the daily cycle of working and living your own lives, and with the help of technology like FaceTime, it's easy sometimes to forget that I'm 500 miles from my family. It's not as if I'd be seeing them on a random Thursday anyway, but when Ashley was leaving to head back home and I was dropping her off at the airport, it definitely hit me that now she has to take a flight down to see us, when previously we were only a half hour drive away. In other ways, though, it made me proud to be able to have her here and show her around, give her a little bit of our experience of living here. Since I've really become an "adult", I've always looked up to my sisters to give me a little bit of guidance as far as how things are supposed to be done. It was nice to show her that, even though we love and miss everyone up in PA, we're doing pretty well here and are very happy with what we have.

A week or so after that, Siobhan's parents came down to visit us and see us in the new house. I would say that I'm lucky to have the in-laws that I have -- I'm not sure if lucky is the right word exactly, but I think it's close. I love Siobhan and I was thrilled to be able to marry her. To have such a great relationship with her parents is really just an added bonus and not something I could have had any control over. I get just as excited for them to come visit as I do for my own parents. I enjoy that they have similar interests to us -- when they visit us, they like to go out and appreciate a good meal and good drinks, they're happy to take Alfie (and whatever guest pups we have) out for walks and don't mind when one of them jumps into bed, and we usually end every night by getting furiously bitter with one another playing euchre. They're also incredibly helpful around the house, which came in handy this time because I was about to rip my hair out trying to fix an issue with our washing machine and Rob went out of his way to find a solution for me.

While they were here, we decided to have a little housewarming party with our Charlotte friends, which was a good time. It really gave us a chance to have a bunch of people coming into OUR home, and it was a great feeling to see people having a good time. It wouldn't have been the same experience without the help of Rob and Philis, who are vets at the dinner party game. I was grateful to have them here helping, just as I'm grateful that they play such a big role in my life.

As we prepare to pack up and head back, I'm wondering how it's going to feel seeing our old city and visiting our old neighborhoods now that we own a house here in Charlotte. I have a little bit of a weird psychological response to going back to my old houses -- even this past month, when I had to go back to our apartment building in South End, I was struck when I saw how many people were still there, even people newly moving in. Some part of my brain feels like, if I'm moving away from a place, that means EVERYONE is moving away from it. Of course I know that the places we've left are still perfectly good places to live, but it's just a knee jerk reaction that I can't believe other people are still there. So I'm curious to see what type of reaction I'll have to heading back to Philly. I'm excited to see our friends and family that we haven't seen for six months, but it's definitely bittersweet to be leaving our new home for so long. We're going to miss our bed, miss our deck and our yard, miss the neighbors on our street that have become such good friends in a short time. But it's a necessary trip, combining several family get-togethers, weddings, and outings with friends all in one. Not quite a vacation as I will still be working pretty much every day, and Siobhan will be taking a week to go for a school training in Colorado. It'll be invaluable to get this much quality time with our families, and we're looking forward to hitting some of our favorite restaurants in the city, but I'm a little nervous about waking up every day and wondering how things are going down here, crossing my fingers that there are no problems, and missing the comforts of the place that we've come to call our home.