Nostalgia

Last night I thought about the day we signed the papers for our first home. I remembered how I could see Superman's eyes smile through his motorcycle helmet. I remembered that even though it was a freezing cold December evening, we strapped our motorcycle jackets on and rode like bandits to our real estate agent's office... a little faster than we should have.

I remembered how excited we were to sign page one of a nearly 300 page contract to our home. I remembered that we weren't married yet, so we had to be "business partners." 

I remembered that the excitement began to wear off by the time we got to signing our 200th page, and we just wanted those dang keys. 

I remembered being carried into our home for the first time and really truly understanding what it meant to love someone. What it meant to work so hard toward a dream together and to see that dream come true. 

We were so incredibly happy I don't think we even slept that night. Life seemed so simple then.

  

 I remembered all of this because these past few weeks I've been calling our mailman incessantly. We still own the home but we don't live there full-time -- the mailman thought that we don't own it anymore and had been returning our mail to the senders. That's what happens when you live in a small town and everyone knows everyone.

Last night, when I found out that some holiday cards sent to our home had been returned to our family, I got really upset and called the mailman. Twice.

In reality, I wasn't as upset as I should have been about the mail or the mailman. I was upset because I felt like our home was being taken away from us. It's hard enough that Superman isn't around our current Apple home. But now I feel like I'm trying to protect two homes at once and make sure that both forts are secure. And whenever one thing gets fixed, another thing breaks.

I also thought about life after this mini-deployment. Will it ever get back to being as simple as it was?