twenty years a home

Twenty years ago this month, we moved into this house.

We had three children back then, ages 5 and under. I was 30 years old and pregnant with our fourth. 

2005: celebrating my 30th

Fast forward to now.

Three weeks ago, we paid off the house. Tomorrow I turn 50. 

I’ve never lived this long in one place. Our children are from this place — the home place. It feels extraordinary, that we’ve made a home. That we’ve raised them. That we’ve lived all these years, here. The gratitude I feel — for these walls, our five acres, this valley cupped with the gentle swell of blue mountains — is chest-crushingly enormous.

Twenty years of full-on, hair-straight-back living in this place! I keep mulling it over. The exactitude and finality of two complete decades makes the chaotic richness of those years that much more mind-boggling.

I am so different now.

We are so different — all of us. 

2008

2022

Over the years, this house has seen so much life. 

• There’s the upstairs bedroom where I squatted on the floor to push the baby out, just a few months after we’d moved in. 

• In the field, the children dug holes and started fires and rode horses and built forts. 

• The beloved dogs are buried next to the porch (and all over the property, skeletons of chickens and pet mice, cats, baby goats, and other sundry bits of farm life are tucked beneath the ground, because raising animals means you gotta deal with the bodies, too). 

• There have been water balloon fights, fire bombs, hymn sings, cookouts, butcherings, doughnut parties, a wedding.

• There have been the other people who have lived here with us (the foster children and Fresh Air kids and International volunteers), as well as the renters who tended the place the year we lived in Guatemala, and the many, many guests — some from just across the field and others from across the globe. 

• There’s been SO MUCH FOOD: grown, harvested, preserved, purchased, cooked, eaten.

• There have been spills and messes and broken glass and tracked mud, and fights and temper tantrums and punched walls and patched drywall. So much patched drywall. 

• There have been stacks of library books, and hours of reading aloud together, voices droning, pages slishing, eyelids drooping. 

• There have been lazy morning and rolicking after-supper debates, accidents and illnesses, depression and loneliness, exuberance and random flare-ups of Unstoppable Giggles.

• There have been mountains of dishes washed (and the abundant caterwalling to go with).

• There have been endless home improvements: clubhouse! milking shed! attic fan! computer desk! barn! closets! kitchen island! patio!

• There have been family night movies with all six of us piled on one sofa and hundreds of pounds (literally) of popcorn eaten.

We’ve loved this place, and we’ve loved in it, and through it all, it’s held us.

Now, even as we’re continuing to fix it up, parts of the house are beginning to go. Twenty years is when you have to start redoing things, my husband says. Like the deck, for example. The railings are wobbly and loose, so “fix deck” has been added to the (mental) queue. 

first evening on the new patio

I’m 50 this year. This week — tomorrow. 

I know I already mentioned this, but it bears repeating.

The number itself is easy — 50 strokes of the hairbrush, 50 chew-and-swallows for a meal, 50 steps, calories, dollars, etc, etc — but when it means years lived? Of my life? That’s harder.

The other morning when I was putting on my shoes before work, it occurred to me that it used to be that the years stretched endlessly ahead of me. All that future, just waiting to be lived! 

But now time is stacking up behind me. I’ve lived long enough to have changed — in many ways, I am wildly different from who I used to be — and I have the memories to show for it, way more than I can possibly hold in my brain. 

I think about this — my dwindling future — a lot. 

Making the last payment on the house.
^{(Or so we thought. Turned out we had to wait another week.)}

My college roommate used to say she wanted to have lots of wrinkles when she got old because they’d be proof she’d smiled a lot. (Do you remember this, Corinna?)

Now that I’ve got wrinkles and gray hair and less energy, her comment pops into my head at least once a week. I don’t fully share my friend’s enthusiasm for the wrinkles, but I know I better find the beauty in, and gratitude for, aging if I’m to do it gracefully.

(Isn’t it funny how one small inocuous statement can barnacle itself to another person while we forget almost everything else? Makes me ponder what barnacles I might be leaving in my wake…)

Unlike houses, remodels on the human body do nothing to extend the lifespan, so long ago, I decided I’d skip the hair dye (and other age concealors). Sure, they tempt me occasionally (or the idea of them tempts me), but I figure it’s better to come to terms with my natural evolution (or de-evolution?) incrementally, rather than in one big whoosh at the end.

After all, life is just one long race to the grave so it behooves one to pace herself, yes?

2025: our house, twenty years a home

So there you have it. In summary, barring a catastrophe, this house will probably long outlast me.

Act I
50 years, lived.
Children, raised.
Home, made.
…and lots of other stuff I’m skipping.

[intermission]

Act II
Coming soon…

Here’s to hoping the second half’s as good as the first.
[clinks glass]

This same time, years previous: South Africa, farm tour, chicken chica, Italian chopped salad, a bakery shift, the quotidian (9.23.19), a bunch of things, grape pie, a day in the life, better than cake, test your movies!, baking with teachers, the quotidian (9.24.12), painting my belly.