living

So I moved into that house in Batavia.
I got anxious while moving, because even though I'd spent a solid month or more in deliberation, it still felt like things were happening too quickly, like I hadn't been patient enough. Maybe it's just something that happens when big decisions are made.
And now I live here. All of my stuff is here. It's not at Wayside anymore. None of it. Between Teen Challenge and Wayside, I spent eleven months living with forty to ninety other guys. Now, I live with four, and it's so quiet.

That reminds me, I haven't explained the situation into which I've moved. The house is for Wayside graduates, providing another, higher level of transition into The Real World. Rent starts out very affordable at zero dollars for the first month, and then increases over the next eleven months to five hundred, at which amount it stays. There are five bedrooms. Mine is the only room, presently, that has two beds, but that'll be changing shortly.
Oh yes. Another tidbit: I've been made the house manager, effective 7 January 2011. The guys who live here are all fifteen-plus years my senior and have been living here from one to four years (set in their ways, they are) which makes things somewhat difficult, but - and this has been my cry for the last eleven months - nothing worth doing is easy! As the new sheriff in town, I'll be doing things like making more of the rooms doubles (which I believe fosters community), instituting a regular cleaning schedule (which I believe is a necessary part of mental and emotional health, as well as physical), replacing the cushiony toilet seat (gross) with a normal toilet seat, and maybe even repainting (spice it up a little, you know? It's a boring pale yellow which could totally be replaced with, oh I don't know, emerald green).

So back to what I was saying: It was - is - an odd transition, living with so many guys for so long to living with so few. I mean, I have my own room (until Joe moves in), a place to put my toiletries (other than my toiletry bag), a place to hang my towels (other than on the front of a locker), a door to shut when I'm ready to sleep. I have a refrigerator, a stove/oven, a dining room table. It's incredible. I'm still giddy about it.
But it was hard moving out of Wayside, which phrase I never thought I'd utter. It was hard moving away from the guys. There was a lot of emotion in the move. After all the rush of packing things and then taking them over to the new place, it hit me: I'm leaving. And praise God for that! But I invested all this time and energy and emotion into that place - and from that place so much was invested into me - that I'm a part of it and it of me. And now I'm leaving.
It was heavy.

I don't know. Maybe as humans we're just really, deeply averse to change. (Maybe I shouldn't make blanket statements like that, should talk about myself and not include you.) I used to be that guy who just loved spontaneity and flying by the seat of his pants, and I'm not anymore because it's so damn exhausting. I like a schedule. I like to know what's going to happen tomorrow and the next day. Of course, I can't really know these things, but you know what I mean. And people who live that way - "spontaneously" - are extra-defensive of their way of life, which just makes me think they don't want change, either, would hate to make a plan for lunch.
I don't think it's just change, though. I think what's behind all the heaviness is just that: heaviness. Brilliant, I know. It's the same old saying-goodbye-pain that everyone's been dealing with since God breathed life into us, and it still hurts.

Anyway:
-Pray for me, and let me know how I can pray for you.
-Sorry for the parenthetical overload.
-A good winter's day to you.