The Move
Faith’s Thoughts:
No one hates moving more than me. In one of my moves, I gave away all my furniture rather than deal with the chore of moving it. Getting married to Terry meant moving in together-which meant MOVING. Thankfully, all the kids had moved out. Nicholas still had a bedroom in the apartment, but he was away at school and it was unoccupied. Terry had a house full of things and a storage unit full of more things. I had an apartment full of things. We were good on things. Moving in together mean downsizing. The process took about a month and a half. While we were planning our wedding, we were also working on the chore of merging households.
There were some improvement projects (read repairs) that needed to be done before I moved out. Both Terry and I are readers who have an attachment to physical books, so we had to merge libraries. Then, there was the “small” chore of consolidating closets. We moved in increments. After work, I would come home, load up things to take to Terry’s house and we would find a place for it. Sometimes, Terry would stop by my apartment to take things to his house. I gave away most of my furniture weeks before we got married. Terry and Davion did the heavy lifting and I had to pack.
The emptier the apartment became, the lonelier it seemed. I remember at one point coming home to an almost empty apartment thinking, “If this dude backs out of this after I’ve given away all my furniture, I’m going to hurt him.” That was one of those “irrational fears” which were running rampant during that time. I had developed a strategy to deal with them. I began to rationalize them intelligently. Terry was investing just as much time in this move as I was. He spent Saturday’s painting walls and fixing cabinets in my apartment and helping me deliver the furniture that I donated. He was just as heavily invested in this as I was. I realized I didn’t have to hurt him.
Moving meant changing my address and having my mail forwarded. Every step was more than a check off my to-do list. It was a realization that I was about to get married. It wasn’t just my address which was changing, my life was changing. It wasn’t just my mail being forwarded, I was moving forward. I had peace, but I was scared. I was scared, yet I was moving forward.
Terry demonstrated many great qualities to me during our moving process. He showed me how he was a hard worker. While I was having my bridal shower, he was being a handy man and fixing things at the apartment. He didn’t complain once, although he did make a few comments about the number of clothes that I was bringing to invade his closet space. He showed me that he could handle stress. We were merging households, planning a wedding, dealing with drama and he was in the process of being promoted at work. He had all that going on, but he still made me a priority. He was sending me flowers and being attentive to my needs. This was love. This was help, provision and protection. This was something I never had. This was what it was to have a great husband. I was ready.
-Faith
The Wedding Planner, Part 2: The Transition
Terry’s Thoughts (T2):
As we were planning the wedding there was one thing that we also had to plan for: transitioning from 2 separate households to one house. She was moving from her apartment to what would soon become our home in Palm Coast. For months, I had been urging her to slowly review what did and did not need to come (as everyone should do when moving) and let me start bringing non-essential items from her apartment to the house. This was easier said than done. Having helped many people move (and having moved several times myself) the one thing that I recognized is that when moving, one must declutter before moving to prevent the unnecessary going up and down 2 flights of stairs. Stairs are NOT a mover’s best friend, especially one who is in their mid-40’s.
So, over the month of February and the first part of March, we talked about what things needed to make the trip and those that needed to either be donated or sent to the great big dumpster in the yard. Now, this didn’t mean that I had nothing to do on my end. I had to prepare to make room for Faith in my closet (who has not had to share her closet for years)! This is a woman whose walk-in closet was larger enough for a person to have a twin bed and still be able to get in and out of. Oy vey! One of the first things that I recognized was that everything that she had in the closet was NOT going to make it, so the winnowing process would begin for both of us.
I never had a lot of closet space in the first place, but this was a whole new experience. The reason for so much clothing in the closet was because Faith didn’t have a dresser in her bedroom and hung just about everything up or had a hanging organizer for the things that couldn’t be hung. (It pays to be watchful and recognize what can be condensed and what could be relocated to another area.) As we went through the closet, I noticed she had her books and other material in her closet, which made it easy and convenient for her to get to when needed. I had several book cases that had space, so my library was about to change to our library and approximately double in size and variety. The more that we looked over the closet, the more confidence that I had that I wouldn’t have to purchase several chifforobes (if you don’t know what a chifforobe is, look it up) to place all MY clothes in and give up the closet.
As we got closer and closer to the time when she had to be completely moved out, the anxiety level started to increase for the two of us. For me, it was making sure that everything was moved out in time before the end of the month as we would be on our honeymoon and did not want to pay for any additional days that she wasn’t in the apartment. For Faith, it was the realization that she was actually going to get married in a few short days and that her life would change forever. It was a time of great excitement and tension as I looked forward to having Faith and the rest of the family become part of my clan.
As a planner, I plan how things should go and have an idea of how they should be accomplished. The one thing that I could not plan is how Faith would react to leaving the place that she called home for several years to move over 30 miles further north to a place that she only frequented from time to time that we would call home. I was not the one who was taking a “leap of faith”, rather it was Faith who was taking the leap. She was trusting God that she was making the correct decision and trusting me that I would not betray the trust that I had earned. She was jumping in with both feet into a new world and I had to make sure that she did not regret the decision that she was making.
Once we got everything moved, except what she needed for the final week and for our honeymoon, there was a sense of “ok, it’s almost time.” We were less than a week away from becoming husband and wife and it felt like the calm before the storm. Most people have heard stories of wedding plans going haywire at the last minute, but that was not going to be the case for me and my bride. All the major components had been completed and the move had been completed. I would not allow Faith to get stressed out about small foxes; it’s my job to deal with them and make sure they would not have an impact on our “happily ever after.” The only thing left to do was to get everyone together and get this marriage started…we just had to wait a few…more…days.
-Terry
Second Time Around for Love 