Home Is Where Your Heart Is

I have made no secret of the fact that I don't like "Mike's house". When I moved here it was supposed to be for six months, all those years ago. It was more than Mike's original family of three needed eight years ago. It was plenty big enough for a single dad and baby/toddler. It was a fine house for Mike, Isaac and I after I moved in. For the last two years, since Riley, it's been too small.

It barely contains almost five years of bachelor pad crap, two kids, and two adults even with most of my belongings in storage. On top of the space crunch there's all that history. I hate that Mike was with other girls in the bedroom we share. I hate that this is the house Isaac's mother abandoned him in. I hate that we didn't move in here together. I invaded his man cave and have been slowly transforming it, too slowly.

The new house has three proper bedrooms as opposed to two bedrooms and a converted garage. It has two bathrooms instead of one. Everyone will have a real closet instead of just the master bedroom. There are even extra closets for linens. Best of all it has a huge fenced in back yard. Currently, we have a close-up view of the highway instead of a back yard. The front yard at Mike's house is a reasonable size, but it's not fenced. We currently have no storage space indoors or out. The new house has both.

Currently the kids have no friends in our neighborhood because all the kids around here are horrible noisy teenagers, but there are children Isaac's age on either side of our new house. Also, Riley's best friend, daycare provider and pediatrician are 5min away (or less). There is a bike trail near by and an elementary school in walking distance. It's better in so many ways. I could imagine birthday parties in that yard in vivid detail.

I waited so long to have some space to call my own. I waited so long for a little patch of sunshine the kids could call their own. I waited so long for a fresh start. A place that could be ours instead of his (no matter how hard I tried). I have waited my entire adult life to be able to decorate a house. Mike was trying to talk me into painting the bed room to cheer me up and make it "more me" and now I get to paint three bedrooms (and anything else I want).

Now we can settle in all together, with our own space and put down real roots.