5 Year Anniversary of Our House

Earlier in December we celebrated the 5th anniversary of living in our house.  When we moved in, Audrey was three and Luke was 9 months.  That seems like a lifetime ago.

I started to write a list of all of the projects we've done since we signed the closing papers, but it got so overwhelming that I stopped.  The short version is that we've painted nearly every room; tiled, carpeted, or refinished nearly every floor; and changed nearly every light fixture and piece of door hardware.  We extended our deck, have done several huge landscape overhauls, had the exterior painted, and had a new roof and two new HVAC units installed.  We've decorated and and redecorated several rooms in big and small ways and organized and reorganized every single drawer, closet, and cabinet multiple times.  And of course there is our most recent and biggest renovation of moving the laundry room upstairs and creating a mudroom in its former space.  

All of this has most certainly made the house feel more like our own.  You can't walk into a room without seeing evidence of our family and our style.  We have poured our blood, sweat, and tears into every corner of this house...literally, in many instances.

But here is something that dawned on me recently:  If we lost every bit of it tomorrow, we'd be just fine.  We'd be devastated, of course, and heartbroken.  But we'd be okay.  Because more than the home we've created for ourselves over the past five years, we have developed a community here that is indestructible.  

Last weekend we drove over to Cobb County to celebrate Christmas at David's aunt and uncle's house.  For years whenever we crossed into the county line, it felt like coming home.  I was born in Smyrna, moved to Powder Springs/Kennesaw area in second grade, moved downtown Atlanta for my Freshmen year of college, and then moved among various apartments in Smyrna until David and I got married and settled in Gwinnett during my senior year of college.  Cobb held all of my major life moments and memories.  I would drive onto the 75 North exit off of 285 and immediately search the skies for the familiar and comforting signs of the C-130s flying training loops out of Dobbins Air Reserve Base.  

I'm not sure when it first happened, but that feeling hasn't hit me in awhile.  Cobb County will always have a special place in my history and in my heart, but it isn't home to me anymore.  My home is now Gwinnett.  

It took a very, very long time for that to hold true...thirteen years in fact.  When I think of why, it all points to establishing community and traditions here.  It's moments that have taken place inside the walls of our house of course, but it's also all the big and small ones that have taken place outside of them too.  It's the local park where we go see fireworks with friends on the 4th of July.  It's running into people you know at the grocery store (always without make-up on, of course).  It's chatting with the owner at a local deli about his family.  It's dropping off borrowed items in a neighbor's mailbox.  It's looking forward to seeing the crazy Christmas decorations at that one house on the carpool route.  It's memories from annual festivals and celebration desserts at the usual spot and knowing the best hill to catch a beautiful sunset. 

When I go out for my early morning run around these oh-so-hilly neighborhood streets, I think about the families inside. Even though we have a huge neighborhood, between the kids' school and the Timber Trek, I know quite a few of them now.  Thoughts about them drift through my mind as I plod past their driveway:  "I bet their daughter is home from college this week."  "I wonder how her mom is doing."  "I need to text her about that recipe she asked for."  "I wonder how her son did in his tennis match."

If anything ever happened to the house we've made here, the community would join in with our families and carry us through.  I know because I've watch them - us - do it for so many others over the years.  

I adore our house and all the work we've done to it to make it ours.  But what I really love is how much the people around it have come to mean to me.  There is no where else I'd rather be.