It's My Move

Tomorrow Melissa and I get the keys for the lease house and the moving starts. I can't decide if I'm excited or nervous, probably a combination of both. Moving into a house together, with our kids, is a big step towards our dream of having a big happy family. It marks a significant change in all four of our lives and a part of me worries that the change will have adverse effects on the relationships within our little clan. A family living together can be tough in the best of circumstances; merging two families together isn't going to be as easy as it was in the Brady Bunch.

Still, I am excited about the place. I think that Colin and Chelsea are going to really enjoy the neighborhood. The house is on a fairly quiet street that ends at the neighborhood park, which is a long thin park connecting two larger community parks with pools and playgrounds. We're all going to be able to take walks to the pool or tennis courts or community events and ride our bikes all over the place. Additionally the neighborhood is filled with a lot more kids both Colin and Chelsea's age. I'm sure that in no time they're going to make friends around the neighborhood and the house will be filled with the sounds of kids being kids. I look forward to this, because it feels like how a childhood should be and I want Colin to have that.

There are also going to have to be concessions made between our two families due to living together. When I stay at Melissa's place I try to be conscious that the apartment is essentially theirs and I am a guest. I don't always act in that way, but we all have our off days. When we move to the new place it will be all of our place and with that we're all going to have things that we want from our new place.

I, for example, don't want the kids using the master bath. When I grew up my parent's bathroom was probably the least frequently visited room in the house by us kids. We hardly every had any need to be in there and that room was for my parent's exclusively. At Melissa's I can't tell you how many times I've come home from work and wanted to sit down only to find the restroom smelly and the seat wet because the dog was drinking out of the toilet. At least that's cleaner than when Colin uses the bathroom. At the new house I want the master bath to be both dog and kid free; we'll see what I get.

Another issue that Melissa and I are going to have to face soon is establishing some parameters for parenting each other's kid. With Colin I'm not too concerned because Melissa already does a great job with Colin, but he's eight and doesn't fuss too much. With Chelsea the situation is totally different. In a few months she's going to be eighteen, but that doesn't change the fact that she's going to be living in our house. The lines of parental authority are already being tested by Chelsea towards her mother; I suspect that any parental authority that I need to assert will not go over well. I may be needlessly worrying though; Chelsea is a really awesome young woman and we get along pretty well. I'm lucky in that Melissa will be there to help me figure things out.

There are going to be a million little things that change when we all move in together. I have confidence that the vast majority of these changes will be welcome changes for all. That tiny percentage that aren't welcome will need our attention and patience to smooth over. I hope that in a few months the gears of family life are all turning effortlessly in Mill Point but if they aren't, I'm committed to doing what needs to be done to fix things.

The last concern that I want to jot down today has to do with my current house. The plan is to rebuild on my property giving Melissa and I our dream house in an area that I have come to love. I've lived in Wildwood, my house, for the past eleven years and the thought of tearing it down and rebuilding gives me a touch of anxiety. The house is old and doesn't meet our needs, but the lot if perfect so rebuilding is the best option, but still there are lingering doubts in my mind that the plan will go smoothly. I worry that the financial markets have already turned against the idea of loaning money for something like this and that Melissa and I will not be able to rebuild. Then what am I to do with Wildwood and more importantly, if the plan falls through how is that going to affect my relationship with Melissa?

There's a lot to worry about I guess. The next chapter in my life starts tomorrow and like all the rest of the chapters I've faced I don't know how this one is going to go. I worry that the future might hold more hardship for me, a pessimistic outlook for sure. I need to find that font of optimism and fill up again. I want the next twelve months to be a fantastic preview of the rest of my life and not a return to troubles past.