Four Years Into a Dream

In honor of my fourth anniversary in my very first dream home, here's a love letter I wrote in September 2005 right after moving in.

I'm in Love

I'm in love -- madly, passionately, deliriously –- with my new home. I’m dancing in my walk-in closet. I stare adoringly at my bathtub. I flirt with the walls and tease them with paint color samples. I sit in the center of each room, most of which are not at all set up yet, and blow smoke rings towards the ceiling. I open and close my liquor cabinet just to look, not to make a drink. I get choked up pulling up on the parking pad to notice her newly pressure-washed shingles. The dishwasher leaks, the washing machine breaks, and I just shake my head- she can still do no wrong. I sleep deeply each night and wake up to notice that birds have built a home right above my head.

In 2009 I've still got the love, but it has been colored by the realities of the challenges in making a relationship work. I roll my eyes as I think that this will be the third year in a row that I've had to repair my roof because Blossom the Possum moved in. And how having to replace three major appliances this year meant that doing the back splash in my kitchen gets put off till next year's tax return check.

But my god, do I love my Atlanta Sky Blue bedroom walls- they still make me feel like I am floating when I lie in my high bed. And my craft room has been the birthing place of more pieces than I ever dared to hope to create. Art actually fills my home of four years- my own and others as I've grown less and less intimidated to decorate the walls that are permanently mine. And hawks regularly visit. And as I watched robins pull worms from my freshly rained upon front lawn this morning, I heard in my head, All the World is Green.