I'll be Home for Christmas

And by “home” I mean my home. My new* home. The one I just purchased. The final papers were all signed this afternoon so all I have to do now is wait for the keys. Well, and finishing my packing.

Exciting times, for sure! I take possession in a little over a week, on the 14^th, which just happens to be a little over a week before Christmas. What a nice and expensive present I bought myself this year. I hope the rest of my family isn't upset that I spent vastly more on myself than on all of them combined...

It's hard to wait. Last night I was wishing I could already start moving some of my stuff in, to clear out some space over here in my current place. Since the place has already been empty for who knows how long that technically could have been a possibility, but I'll just have to be patient and wait until it's officially mine.

Also, there are so many things I'd like (or need) to buy, but I've been telling myself to wait until after I've moved in to buy anything. Not only because I'd have to find a place to store it in this mess until then, but it would be a good idea to have a few days to let the layout, colors, etc. fully sink in so I can buy stuff that I'll know will look great there (not to mention the possibility of some great Boxing Day sales). But that hasn't stopped me from going to stores and browsing, though.

The one exception was a new box spring and bed frame. Since I'll actually have a spare bedroom now, having a bed to go in said bedroom would be a plus. And fortunately a friend said I could store it along the wall in his garage for a couple weeks, and we even went out in his van to purchase it. Of course, I'll use the new bed myself and leave the old one for any guests I may get. Don't worry, I did also purchase a new foam top for the old mattress so it hopefully won't be that bad... Maybe I should spend a few nights on it just to see how it is before anyone else has to use it. Worst case scenario, I do have a rather comfy air mattress that could be used.

I honestly can't believe how fast things have gone. Now I'm counting the days until I get my condo. And as soon as the actual time of day when I'll get the keys has been arranged, I'll have to start counting down the hours. If I assume, for now, that my realtor and I will meet up as soon as I can after work that Friday, then that means at this moment I only have about 212 hours to go!

* And of course, by “new” I actually mean new to me, not a newly-built condo. I did check out the pricing on one out of curiosity, and found that a smaller one bedroom unit still cost a whole lot more than my two bedroom one. New would have been nice, but I didn't want to pay anywhere near what they were wanting.

Home for the Holidays?

I had a strange realization last night. In a couple days I fly out to spend Christmas with my family, but I'm really not “Going home for the holidays.”

After I moved out on my own, my parents moved a couple times themselves but those other houses still felt like home to me, even though I never actually lived in either of them myself. But it's different now after this third move, to Saskatoon.

Other than the rare times with snow on the highways or some other road obstruction, I've never had to travel for longer than 40 minutes to spend time with my family. With their other houses I always felt at home there, as I was able to visit frequently and spent a lot of time there so I was strongly accustomed to them. In fact, while I lived in this apartment, to me home was my parents' house.

This Christmas I'm going to a house I've never even visited before. I know, technically I have been there back in September when I helped them move. But really, the extent of my time in their new home was just spending a day unloading a truck into the empty house and eating a quick-and-easy KFC take-out dinner. I spent that night back at my brother and sister-in-law's place and flew back to Abbotsford the following morning. I have a mental image of what their unpacked-and-set-up home might look like but that's it.

And now, with the extra physical distance between us, it takes much more time and expense to visit. I probably won't get out there more than a couple times a year, so by the time their house might start feeling like home, they'll be moving again and it'll start all over. Although I will certainly look forward to all my visits to see my family (although that may change after experiencing a Saskatoon winter...), I'm not sure that I'll be able to view my parents' house as home ever again.

And thus begins the process of redefining what home means to me.