Making Room

We moved into our new home in May, and months later, there are still spaces I haven't figured out. Some rooms came together quickly. We knew where the furniture belonged, hung things on the walls, and began living in them almost immediately. Other spaces have taken longer. There are corners that still feel unfinished and walls I haven't decided what to do with. Our bathroom renovation stretched into the summer, and for a while, boxes seemed to migrate from one room to another as we tried to decide what belonged here.

I thought by now the house would feel more finished. I've moved enough times to know that settling into a home takes time, but I still carry an image of what "done" looks like. Everything has a place. The projects are finished. The pictures are hung. The things we no longer need have left the building. You can walk through a room without mentally adding something to a list.

This house hasn't allowed me to arrive there quite as quickly as I would have liked. Maybe that's because we didn't simply move our belongings from one place to another. We brought entire lives with us. Things accumulated over years. Furniture chosen for different rooms. Objects attached to memories. Boxes packed quickly because deciding could happen later.

Later eventually arrived, and I found myself standing in front of things asking questions I hadn't needed to ask when we packed them. Do I still want this? Where would it go? Am I keeping it because I love it, or because I've had it for a long time? Does it belong in this home simply because it belonged in the last one?

Some decisions were easy. Others surprised me. There were things I had once cared about that didn't seem to carry the same meaning anymore, and things I had assumed would come with me that suddenly felt connected to a life I wasn't trying to recreate. There were also things I hadn't thought much about that became unexpectedly important once I held them again.

Moving has a way of making us touch our lives because eventually, everything has to pass through our hands. We decide what to keep, what to give away, what has reached the end of its usefulness, and what deserves a place in the life we're creating now. For someone who can find meaning in almost anything, this is not always an efficient process.

I've been learning to let some things go without constructing a ceremony around every decision. I'm learning that gratitude doesn't require permanent possession. Something can have belonged to an important chapter of my life without needing to occupy space in every chapter that follows.

Slowly, the house has begun to breathe, and there is less in it now. I've been surprised by how much I like that.

I've always cared deeply about the way a home feels. I notice light and movement, clutter and proportion, the places where the eye rests and the places where the body seems to soften. I've spent years thinking about how we create homes that support the lives happening inside them, and what I'm noticing in this home is how much of that feeling comes from what isn't there.

An empty corner can simply be an empty corner. A wall doesn't need something on it just because there is space, and a room can feel complete without being full. This sounds obvious when I write it, but I don't think I've always lived that way.

Space has often felt like an invitation to me. An open hour could hold an appointment. An idea could become a project. A new interest could become something I studied. A possibility could become something I pursued. I like beginnings, and I like imagining what something could become. Give me an empty room and eventually I will start picturing what might belong there.

Maybe that's why I've been so interested lately in what happens after we release something.

We talk a lot about letting go, but not nearly as much about the space that follows. When something that occupied our attention, energy, time, or imagination no longer does, eventually we notice the room it left behind.

My instinct is often to ask what belongs there next. I'm beginning to wonder whether that question sometimes arrives too soon.

There are spaces in our house that I still haven't decided what to do with. A few months ago, that would have felt like evidence that we weren't settled yet. Now I am starting to enjoy them. I like walking past a place that hasn't been assigned a purpose. I like that the house is still becoming ours. I like knowing that we can live here for a while before deciding what every room needs from us.

Maybe our lives deserve that same patience. Not every space created by an ending needs an immediate beginning. Not every newly available hour needs an appointment. Not every question needs to become a project. We don't necessarily have to turn newly available space into something else simply because we can.

Sometimes room is simply room, and perhaps we discover something about ourselves by allowing it to remain that way long enough to notice what happens there.

There are still places in this house that will change. Eventually another picture will probably find its wall. Something will find its way into an empty corner. We'll finish projects, move furniture, and continue making decisions about how we want to live here.

I don't know what will eventually fill every space.

For now, I like having some room to find out.

A Gentle Invitation

As you move through the week ahead, I wonder...

Where in your life might you allow a little room to remain unfilled?