Moving, tears, and joyous gratitude

Yesterday I posted about our impending move (we'll be all in by October 15th at the latest!).  But I didn't finish the story.

In short, our new apartment has space.  We have a roomy living room, a dining room, bigger bedrooms, more bathrooms, more cabinets, more counter space, laundry machines, and parking.  It's all just more.  More of everything we need for our home.

And here's where I begin to cry.

I have a difficult to describe relationship with faith.  Being an academic, I know a lot of atheists and agnostics (the world of academia has a significantly higher percentage of non-believers than most other fields) and I also know a lot of people who disparage religion.  I grew up, though, surrounded by many people of faith.  Regardless of my personal relationship with faith, I have never disparaged religion because I was lucky enough to grow up with a church family that is nothing but warm, welcoming, down to earth, funny, and very inclusive.  I grew up going to Sunday School and church regularly but haven't truly had what I'd consider faith since my teens.  I have a very difficult time believing.  But I have always enjoyed going to church once I'm there and I don't necessarily connect going to church with actually having faith, as illogical as that seems.  I like the feeling of security the church gives me, I love the music, and I love the community offered by my family's particular church.

There isn't much faith in my daily life, though.  I don't pray, and I don't think about faith regularly.  But there are times that I am moved.  The first time I was ever in a synagogue, for example, I was so moved that I was brought to tears.  To this day I can't fully determine why (although at least part of it has to do with my love and admiration for the Jewish faith and Jewish culture).

I had Nate baptized because I'm not strong enough of a non-believer not to.  I didn't see the harm in it and it's a part of my family's culture.  During the ceremony, I had to not concentrate on the words we were speaking and singing because it was too moving and I started to cry.

I was there to hear your borning cry,
I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.

So I have these moments.  And when I was home on maternity leave, I would sit and rock Nate and cry because I was so sad that we couldn't live somewhere bigger and better for him, that we decided to bring him into our family in a space that wasn't adequate for his extremely quickly growing needs.  (And if that isn't sad enough, I sit and rock him in a squeaky office chair because we don't have the room for an actual rocking chair or glider.)

So I would sit and rock with him and cry ... and pray.  I would pray so hard, apologizing for not praying more often and for not really believing in praying, but praying anyway because I felt compelled to.  I needed to ask for help.  I didn't want a miracle.  I wasn't asking to win the lottery so I could pay off my student loans and buy a house.  I just prayed for a way for us to get more space in the town we wanted without breaking our budget.  I prayed for some way to move without having to move all in one day or pay two rents for a month plus a security deposit.  I prayed for this more than once and I cried often, wondering if somehow Nate would one day remember that his mother cried this much, if somehow I was creating a sadness in him.

But the prayers were answered, all of them, in their own ways.  Our rent is going up, but only a little because my brother offered to live with us (he actually came to me with the idea).  We found an apartment through a friend of the family, so they reduced the rent and are letting us pay the security in two parts.  Our current landlord is letting us pay half a month's rent for October.

We are getting everything we need and the gratitude and joy I feel over this is overwhelming.  I still cry, but now it's from joy and relief.  Is our new home perfect?  No, of course not.  Are all our problems solved?  Far from it.  But do we have what I wanted for Nate?  Yes.  Could I care more about anything else?  No.

This is why I didn't want to talk about the move until I was absolutely sure it was happening - because it all felt too good to be true.  People don't get the things they ask for.  We don't get those things.  We couldn't possibly be getting all of this.

But we are.  And I am overwhelmingly grateful and excited.  Maybe when what you ask for isn't too big or outrageous, it can happen.  I don't know.  I don't have any more answers now than I did before.  And I don't believe/disbelieve any differently than I did before.  But none of that changes the joy and gratitude I am feeling.

Our new living room windows face the main street in town and the ceiling is pretty high (one of the benefits of an older house) so one of my first thoughts was, "I can't wait to put our Christmas tree there."  I cannot wait to decorate for Nate's first Christmas, to have space for presents, space for him to crawl around and explore, to sit on the floor and rip wrapping paper while wearing footsie pajamas.  Christmas is nearly three months away, but my gifts are complete.

Comments

[Kyra]

Yay! How exciting. I'm so happy for you and living with your brother sounds like a perfect solution. Also - built in babysitter. We lived with my sister and brother-in-law when Indira was born and it was wonderful to have extra hands around, even for simple things like "can you hold her while I make a piece of toast". Congratulations on the new place! I hope we get to see pictures soon. Dave and I are moving into a new place in November so I can totally relate to the excitement of it. Wooo. As for the faith, I think it's wonderful that you have that faith to lean on and to turn to when you need it.

[Sarah]

I am SO happy for you! I felt the same way when we found out we were pregnant. I was so afraid I would lose him because rarely do people get what they want, but everything worked out in the end.
You'll have to post pics of your new place.

[Lori @ I Can Grow People]

I know that moving is hard, but I am so happy that you are moving to new place--and just before the holidays too! Baby's first Christmas is so much fun!