Exhaustipated to the point of exhaustipation I decided that there was no better time to deal with the last remaining boxes than now. Not the boxes of books that remain, unopened, in the shed. No, not those because I don’t have any bookshelves yet. I mean the three boxes that have stayed in the corner of my bedroom because they are labelled, somewhat ominously, with the mismatched labels “Stationery and Shoes.”
In the end, those boxes were not so hard, consisting as they did of lead pencils, notebooks and the rainbow-coloured sandal for the left foot for which I have searched high and low because somehow I brought the right in my suitcase and have assumed, all this past year, that the left must be here somewhere. But it was in transit.
This week, it has been a year since we moved into the house. This time last year the list of renovations included but was not limited to: knock down back wall replace with bi-fold doors; kitchen; bathroom; remove bar; put up wall; move bathroom; turn door into window; convert shed into studio; take up carpet in bedroom; remove built-ins; replace light-fittings; replace curtains; replace tiles in the entrance;…you get the picture and that’s just inside.
Current list of renovations: clean out cat litter tray.
(I hasten to point out that List A minus List B is not equal to the things that have been done, but I’m sure you already worked that out.)
We probably do need to do a bit of work on it. It’s been chopped and changed in a couple of strange ways so that now it’s layout is odd and that and makes for many oddities and quirks. But there is not a single day that I have not come home and thought, ‘Really? Do I really get to live here?’
In my adult life, I have never felt this way about a house before. That this is my house, where I belong. I have loved each house that I’ve lived in, but until now I’ve always known that I would leave. I know that there will still be many times when I am restless and filled with wanderlust because that is who I am. But I’ve found the home that I will always come back to. And one day, I’ll have all of the boxes unpacked.