The next part of my journey was a new chapter in my life. It was the first time I moved away without my family. Some would say that at the age of 29, it was about time. I would argue different. It wasn’t like I was some lost gaming kid living in their parents’ basement. I had jobs. I was responsible. But I was very Un-American: I had no debt.
But I got a job offer in Texas. A place I really didn’t want to live again. It just seemed like the Lord’s next step for me. So, I packed whatever I could in my Hyundai Tucson and drove to Corinth, Texas. Where I moved back into the house my parents had built there 26 years before. My grandfather had been widowed the previous year and he was lonely. He was happy to have me, even though it was an adjustment for both of us. I was glad for the opportunity to get to know him a little better. I moved into what had been Katey’s room. Gone was the primary color plaid-like wallpaper. My grandmother (who was colorblind) had had it painted Big Bird Yellow. Which goes with absolutely nothing so it didn’t seem to matter that nothing in the room matched it. With a fulltime job and a gambit of other activities I soon picked up, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the room anyhow. Thirteen months later I would move out as things weren’t going well with my grandfather. It was hard, but I was glad.
I mean, really, who wouldn’t be glad to move into a 6,3000 square foot ranch style house that was situated in what seemed like a very secluded spot. I even had to put notes on FedEx orders to tell the driver it was okay to cross over the railroad tracks. How I ended up living there with my old friend Haley (who had lived there since she was a teenager) is a rather long story. I won’t go into all of it, but her parents had been houseparents there when it was a home for pregnant girls. The ministry was trying to sell the house, but it was a bit more than most people wanted to take on. So Haley and I lived there for an insanely cheap rate, utilities included. Later that would change to no rent but we paid the utilities. Which still equaled insanely cheap.
To describe the house as “sprawling” would be accurate. I lived in what was really the front of the house (but since you could only approach the house from the back, a lot of people had never seen the front), in a “suite” that included my bedroom, closets, “living are” and bath. Haley lived on the other side of the house down a long wing in a big room with its own bath. We shared the general living area and kitchen-to-die for. There were two more bedrooms with a bath between, another two bathrooms, a dining room, a large second living area, an enclosed porch, three-door garage, large entry space, large laundry room and more closet space than you could count. We mowed the fenced in acre (or so) and kept it mowed just outside the fence as well to discourage the many snakes living in the surrounding acres of mesquite. The house needed some touch-ups and even some updates, but it needed nothing to actually live in it quite happily. And with so much space, some weeks Haley and I hardly saw one another. We’d leave messages for each other on the white board in the kitchen.
I’ll always have memories of that house. And I’ll always wish I could own that house. I built my dollhouse there. During November and December, the kitchen floor was always sticky with Haley’s endless batches of peanut brittle she sold. We’d block out Saturday mornings just to dustmop and mop all the floors. Haley taught me to use the weed-whacker. (I think she was a bit distressed over my abilities with that one.) We played lots of games of Scrabble, had friends and family over, and even though we weren’t BFFs, we talked through our highs and lows, laughed together, grew frustrated over all kinds of things, and generally did some life together. It was good, and I was did cry when I left. Not because I was leaving Texas (hooray!) but because I would miss Haley.
My next adventure led me straight north on I-35 that ran right past my Texas home up to Minnesota. It was like leaving one country and moving to another: sunny, warm temps to below zero and a snowstorm the first weekend I moved in. Southern twang versus the nasally Minnesota vowels. Wide open plains to rolling farmland. There in tiny Upsala, I moved into a little two-bedroom apartment which more than suited my meager needs. (And they were meager. There was a piano in the apartment Carmen – my predecessor at camp and the apartment – kept for Bill, the camp director, until he could take it to Minneapolis to his daughter. A few months after I moved in, I gave him my keys to retrieve it. He came back, handed me my keys, and said, “Melissa, I think you were robbed. They took all your furniture.” I laughed…since I had no furniture!) I really liked that little apartment. I did have a bed and bookshelf. Eventually I would get a chair, but my television would always be situated on a box I didn’t need to unpack. My parents even brought up my dresser. I had ample closet space, a kitchen I hardly used since I was at camp so much, and even a garage space for my bike and car (a necessity in Minnesota just so one’s car is more likely to start when the temps are well below zero for days!). I could run all over that tiny town or go on long bike rides down country roads, walk to pick up the mail and go to the library. It was a nice, quiet space when camp life became very stressful. I loved it, and I was sorry to leave the little place a year and half later.
By my adventures continued!
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