I didn’t write a post yesterday for two reasons:

1. I was really busy
2. I had sort of a mini-meltdown

The day started out like normal.

My morning was full of meetings for work, so nothing new or exciting there.

Around lunch time, my Dad called me and I think that sort of started the panic ball rolling.  Until I moved to California, I lived in the same house (in Pittsburgh) my entire life.  Well, technically since I was 1 year old.  It’s a really nice house in the suburbs, on a cul-de-sac.  There were lots of other kids in the neighborhood so we were always playing outside in the yard, on the swingset, in our playhouse, etc.  We had one of those huge trampolines:

Yep, we even had that cage enclosure around the outside (my parents were terrified that someone would go flying off and break every bone in their body.)  The house was in a really safe and low-traffic area so we were always running around and taking bike rides through the neighborhoods and walking to the park where we would hike and wade in the creek.

The house itself was perfect to grow up in too.  Pretty big, with a huge yard.  Basketball hoop in the driveway, big deck out back.  We also put on an addition, which was a beautiful “sun room” with skylights, windows all around and a sliding door onto our back deck.  That was my favorite room in the house (besides my bedroom!)

Anyhow, I guess you get the point.  It was a really nice house, but more than that – it was my house.  The house I grew up in, the house with all my memories.  The house where we were actually one family together in for 23 years…  before the divorce and the fracture of our family into so many different pieces.  Through celebrations and tears, milestones and plain old lazy days, it was home.

Five years ago, when my parents got divorced, my mom moved out.  She bought her own house, and I always considered that “her house” and my dad’s house “my house” since that was the house I had lived in.  In 2008, my dad got remarried and his wife moved in with him.  And last month, they decided to put “my house”, which was technically now “their house”, up for sale.  They weren’t going to move far, just to a smaller house (now that they had an empty nest) closer to where they worked.  But I was really sad when I heard that they would be selling the house I grew up in.

I thought that with this housing market, at least it would take a while to sell.  I was hoping that they would still be in it the next time I made a trip home (which I’m hoping will be in the next few months) so that I could see it one last time and show it to S, who has never seen it.  But, they listed it and it sold in 2 days!!! Not only that, but they quickly found a house that they wanted, put an offer down and it was accepted.  They did a really fast close and… moved last weekend.

So when my dad called, he told me that they were officially out of the old house and in the new one.  Even though I knew all this was happening, for some reason when he called and told me that, it really hit me hard.  So many things have changed the past few years, but I always knew there was that one place I could go back to, to my small town, where I would always call “home”.  Not anymore – now it’s somebody elses home.

Now when I go back to PA, I will either be at my mom’s house or my dad’s house.  Neither are my homes, now I am just a visitor.

At the same time, the one place now that really is my home (my townhouse here in California) is in the process of becoming our home as S moves in.  I’m having a tough time with that, too.  Yesterday, I spent every second that I wasn’t at work being a “housewife”.  I did laundry, I cleaned the house.  I put things away, tidied up.  I made breakfast, lunch and dinner.  And all of a sudden, in the middle of the afternoon, I though… Is this it?? Is this what my life is going to be like from now on?  Are my carefree childhood days, and my independent early-twenties days gone??

I’m panicking.  It’s like we’re going all in now, our chips are all on the table.  And when I panic, I question whether we are doing the right thing.  But then I think of the alternative – S living somewhere else (and if he does, he will get an apartment closer to SF so his commute to work isn’t so long every day.  So we will be quite a distance away from eachother.)  And I don’t want that…

I guess I’m just scared.  And I guess that’s normal.  I feel like I am looking for something to give me some sense of security – to promise me that I am doing the right thing and that this relationship is going to last and I am not going to get hurt.  I never thought I would live with someone without being married to them – for some reason that stupid title symbolizes the commitment that I am looking for.  But I’m not ready to get married yet… if having someone moves into my house makes me have this much of a meltdown, I can’t even think about walking down the aisle.

This is what I want, it’s what I always have wanted.  So why am I so afraid of it???