I wasn’t going to write a post today. I’ve was gone from 7:29 this morning until 8:30 tonight except for about 30 minutes of comment-checking, red-lipstick-painting, and costume-gathering.
But then, I saw that my friend Mary, over at Giving Up on Perfect was participating in a 5 minute writing challenge at the Gypsy Mama, and I thought it sounded like fun.
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The topic: 5 years ago.
Here goes:
Five years ago, we were living in a rent house. A rent house that was 400 square feet smaller than the house we’d moved out of. According to U-Haul, we had brought enough stuff to fill two houses, each twice as big as the one we were moving out of.
The house was filled with boxes, I was 8 months pregnant and spent time every single day on my knees, praying that God would lead us to the right house. I’d prayed for 6 months for our house to sell, and when it had, two months earlier, every house we’d looked at went off the market and there was literally nothing in our small town that would work for our family.
I cried a lot.
It was probably about this time that we started looking for a storage unit, because the rent-house had boxes stacked to the ceiling in the entire two-car garage and covering every wall in the living room.
I was buying baby girl clothes like crazy because it was the only thing I could do to nest. There was no room for a nursery. But there was an “ebay room.” It breaks my heart to realize/say that.
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Ok, I’m done. Five minutes are up, and the rules are that you have to stop after that.
I think I’ll go cry now.
I didn’t have time to let myself do that during the five minutes.
Hah, I love your honesty here! I do hope everything turned out well with the rest of that pregnancy and the rented house! Change does bring tears sometimes.
Aren't these 5-Minute Fridays fun? I just started joining them about a month ago.
Oh, what a moving post. Cry your tears but then cry some tears of joy. You have come so far and look how much God has been able to teach you through all of this. And look at all the people you have been able to reach out to because of it – you are making a difference such a difference. God is so good at turning our ashes into beauty.
Girl, we live in a wee little rental house too with boxes that *still* haven't been unpacked in the three years we've lived here 'cause there just isn't any space for the stuff. We have two boys and I'm 4 weeks away from giving birth to a little girl. So I hear you on the stocking up on pink in lieu of nesting. And it seems the tears in these moments of life are sacred, because they are milestones for what we're learning and who we're becoming.
Thank you for sharing – makes me look forward to where we'll be five years *from* now.
~Lisa-Jo
I can't stand to let you cry alone! Dawn said things better than I can, so ditto to what she said. I hope next week is about what awesome place you think you'll be in five years from now! (Whatever house you're in will be sparkling, of course. :>))
I am so curious! Where do you live now? How long did you live in that rental place?
Great post…makes me what to know more!
Joining you here from 5 Minute Friday!
This is just a lovely post! I can just see you sitting among those boxes – I wish I could bring that sweet girl a casserole 🙂
And you just tickled me with your comment on waiting until the end of the five minutes to commence the crying. That's so something I would say, hehe.
Have a great weekend 🙂
Thanks for your sweet comments! Maybe I'll have to dive into this "clutter history" and chronicle more of this story.
I have to say that I checked for comments this morning on my husband's iphone while at a school fundraiser. BIG mistake. Dawn and Lenetta, your comments totally made me blubber. I had to stop reading because I was afraid I would embarrass my family!
Ohhhh . . . I understand. Though we have a "big" house comparatively, we have no closet space. When we had to rearrange rooms to remodel, we had five girls in one bedroom for over a year. Ohhh . . . that was not good! So, we sure learn to appreciate when we can make changes. Thank you for sharing . . . and I'd like to read more too!
Its not where u been its where ur at!
and see how far you came 🙂 I have came a long way in 5 years too of meeting the flylady and reading the messy books 🙂
Very sad post Nony! When our slobbishness affects our children (even in utero) it is the worst. Husbands can always choose to leave but kids are stuck with us! The first time I told my daughter she couldn’t have a friend over because the house was too messy was a sad day. Some friends can come over if we know them well or they also have *at least* 3 kids and could understand the train wreck. There are two friends who we never have had over because they couldn’t come when it WAS clean or I just didn’t have the energy to stay up all night and do an overhaul for a visit.
I hope you finish this at some point in the future postings . . . I’d like to know ‘the rest of the story’ about this move.