house of laughter

I wrote this last week in Cozumel, but didn't have Internet to post it...so here it is.  Much has happened since, but at the time, these were the thoughts/worries/hopes/prayers.

Friday, July 22^nd 

This morning I woke up with thoughts of furniture shopping and house decorating.  After a tumultuous week and a half of house-shopping, filled with more “grown-up” learning than I was ready for, Emily, Sarah and I paid the deposit on our three bedroom, two bath house 4 days before I left Mississippi for Cozumel.  The day before I left, we hauled all of our belongings into the office space, eagerly waiting for the remodels to be complete and the house ready for us to really move in.  When I left, we still didn’t have a fridge or washer or dryer or mattresses or furniture.  I’m under strict orders to “not worry about anything” while on vacation, but that has hardly stopped me from taking the mental tour of the house, trying to begin unpacking and settling my life rattled with transition.

As I was walking through the house, choosing to dream just a little longer than my alarm clock suggested, I had the awful realization that the house I’m preparing in my head is for friends who won’t be there.  Much like all the “professional dress” clothes shopping I did before moving to Mississippi—every time I purchased something, my first thoughts were “I can’t wait to show Stacey!” or “Bethany will definitely want to borrow this!”  Only to then remember that a) we don’t share a closet anymore, and b) they won’t see me dressed up for school.  In the same way, my sunny tour of my new house got a little cloudy when the faces around the kitchen table became a mirage and I remembered that I don’t know who my regular dinner guests will be.

I imagine this new house on Edgewood to be full of the laughter, naturally.  But my imagination hears the voices and chatter and laughs of all my closest friends…just like my first dorm room and first apartment in University Park, my favorite home in University Village and my last year in the Adams dorm.  Each of these homes holds so many wonderful memories of birthday parties and family dinners and slumber parties and all-nighters and Christmas parties and lazy Saturday mornings.  Those walls have many secrets and stories tacked up like proud family photos.  The couches and beds have many tears and triumphs woven into their fabrics.  And those kitchen tables have gathered some of the most sacred moments of hospitality and humility. 

As I imagine my new home, it’s hard not to see the faces of Stacey and Bethany and Amanda and J around the table.  Of Meghan and Brian and Stevie on the couches.  Of Jaclyn and Amber and Nemesia and Hilary on the porch.  It’s hard not to picture their cars lined up in the driveway or their purses and coats by the front door.  It’s hard not to imagine my refrigerator stocked with all of their favorite drinks and my cupboards with their snacks.  The dishes and pillows are the same, but the people and laughs are not.

So I continue to pray the same prayer that I’ve been praying—and seeing faithfully answered—for the last several months.  I pray for again.  I am so excited to live with Emily and Sarah.  I know that they, like my roommates before, will be so important in this next season of my life.  I know that we have much to learn from and teach to one another.  I am so excited for our kitchen table and for our couches.  I’m so excited to be a part of the Hazlehurst community and am eager to make this community a family.  I’m excited for the 2D grayscale names and faces to become 3D and colored with memories and stories.  I’m hopeful for the friendships that will come in these next two years…for the dinners and birthday parties and afternoon chats on the porch. 

I know that home is not an address or a building or a piece of furniture.  I know that it is people.  That means I have several homes…in Arvada and Azusa and Bristol and Seattle and San Francisco and Cincinnati and Minneapolis and Camden and Hungary and Cleveland and El Dorado and Fordyce and now, in Hazlehurst, Mississippi. 

So, to all of my family in all my other homes, consider this a formal invitation to visit my new home…I’d love to hear your laughter here.  And in the mean time, I’m still praying for the again of new friends and new family and new laughter.