It's a Beautiful Life

Every eight years or so, my husband and I put massive amounts of pressure on ourselves.  I don't think we mean to, it just happens.
For example, let's flashback to August 2005.  We were as happy as humming birds dancing around a warm flower.  On July 30th, we said our wedding vows at a small chapel in the mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee and then spent our honeymoon in a log cabin.  While driving back to Indiana, we realized we had nowhere to live and I had no job.
That's okay, why sweat the small stuff, right?
During that eight hour drive, we sang a ridiculous amount of Third Eye Blind, ate too much fudge and found out that someone accepted our offer on a house and I received a teaching job at a middle school.
There was still some bad news.  We couldn't close on the house for a month which meant we had no home for a month. No offense to our parents, but we didn't want to shack up with them for our first month of marriage.
No problem.
We had connections to someone that rented us an apartment for a month.  Not a luxurious apartment by any means, but nonetheless, an apartment.
Phew.
Now, let's fast forward a bit.
August 2013.
Here we go again.
Right around the middle of August, we sold our house.  We'd had it on the market on and off for five years and finally, we sold it.  So exciting!
Well, except for the fact that I was nine months pregnant, just finished a beautiful nursery for our baby, and my husband and I decided we would definitely stay put in this house for a year.  You see, it took us removing our house from the market for someone to show interest in it.  Go figure.
We decided to accept their offer and look for somewhere to live.  I mean, it took us five years to sell it.
Why would we pass up the chance?
Not a solid plan.
An adventurous one.
Two weeks later, I gave birth to our beautiful son.  We were too distracted to think about packing and finding another house.  Luckily, the buyers couldn't close for a while so we stayed in our house for another six weeks.
But those six weeks went fast.  Way too fast.
At the end of the six weeks, we took about two days to pack up our belongings, mostly into trash bags, and moved in with my parents.
That's right.  I'd love to tell my 23 year old self, "Oh, by the way, in a little over eight years, you're going to move back in with your parents.  Also you have a baby."  Ha!
Our plan was to live with my parents until we found a house.  But we weren't finding any houses we liked so let's throw another wrench into our plans!
My husband interviewed for a job in Chicago and was a final candidate for it!
So then, our new plan was to wait until he heard about the job.
Funny, the business world seems to move quickly until they make a decision that hugely affects your life.
They took their sweet time deciding.
We were going on two months of living with my parents before they offered him the job.
Okay, now we had direction.  Problem solved!
We found an apartment in Chicago and moved our furniture in two weeks later.  I thoroughly hope our furniture and other belongings enjoyed their stay, because they were only there a week.
Something funny happened to us when we had a child.  We stopped thinking about ourselves all the time. Our strong desire to leave the place we were raised started to fade away.  We had to think about a little drooling, pooping, smiling, bouncing baby boy instead of ourselves.
And we couldn't leave our friends and families.
Our friends are having babies, our families adore our little one, and believe it or not 23 year old self, I really like living in South Bend, Indiana.
On a brisk December night, my husband and I decided Chicago was not for us.  And we love Chicago.  We wanted nothing more than to live there.  But when we actually were about to leave, we realized what we'd be leaving behind.  The past eight years, we planted roots in our community and we never even realized it.  We wanted our little guy to be a part of that.
As stated before, I hope our furniture enjoyed its stay.
We moved everything out of our Chicago apartment a week later and realized we were back at square one.
So here we are, about three and a half months of living with my parents.
That's okay.  This whole crazy mess was meant to be.
Why?
We found a house that we both felt was ours' as soon as we walked in.  And it's in the neighborhood we've always wanted to live in. We close in three weeks.
I'm sure eight years from now, my 40 year old self would love to tell my 32 year old self a few things.
I'm sure my 95 year old self will too.
Now I realize something.  I wish I could go back and tell my 13 year old self that Ace of Base was right.
It really is a beautiful life.