How the laundry basket told me to live right now

There’s a piece of brown, broad moving tape on our laundry basket upstairs.

I put it on a year and five months ago to keep the lid and the basket together when we moved here. I don’t notice it very often. When I do, I figure I might as well leave it on until we move again.

Were not staying here anyway.?

It might be time to take it of now.?It can become a habit to move on.

We’re not staying here anyway.

I don’t want to invest myself here anymore. It’s too risky?and it will?make it hurt more to leave. I might even leave a part of me behind.

I detach, dream of and plan for the future instead of being present in the now.

I’ve lived in 14 houses now. The longest we stayed in a house was 4 years and the shortest was 5 months.

There’s always the initial giving it my all, wanting to put down roots, attempting to push and stomp them into the ground.

Going all out to make friends. Excitement about the new.
Towards the end when I can feel the move looming up just beyond the horizon, there’s the pull-back. Slow at first but then rapidly predominating?everything.

Because we’re leaving anyway.

This last move was temporary from the first. We’ll live here for a few months until our house is done. The tape can stay on, I’ll need it again when we move.
And then the few months turned into a few more, into a year, into we-have-no-idea-when-we-can-move.

I now can close up and shut down and keep everyone at a cool distance.
Or I can live with reality and accept that God has put me here, that He knows about it, that He could fix it if He thought it best but that apparently, He doesn’t think it best.

So I’ll be here.

All of me. I won’t send part of my heart and all of my dreams to some future place I don’t know about yet, some place I assume will be better.

The better place I’m always looking for? In a way, it’s already here. It’s always here in my now. There is no perfect moment to wait for, to postphone my life and my enjoyment in life for.?In another way, there is such a thing as Heavenly Perfection that will never be here: there is sorrow and pain and there is an aching for justice and perfection that will only be seen in Eternity.

Now, I am here.?And for now, that is good.

These last months of living here, I’ve bothered myself about learning my way around. I?can now drive to the school in two different ways. (I know. I am quite the adventurer).

I can drive to and from the train station. Or from the station to the school. I am the proud owner of a Library card and I’ve walked to the post office, the town hall, the bank. I’ve enjoyed living in a place where I can walk to the store in five minutes.

I’ve shut up the voice that told me ‘don’t bother. In a few months you’ll be gone and you can’t walk to the store anymore. No reason to start enjoying it now, no reason to make it part of your life and your day because it’ll leave again.

I’ve shut it up and I’ve walked to the library with Caleb in babywrap and a little white sunhat on his head. I’ve enjoyed getting to know the streets and the houses and the sun that makes everything friendly and gives the place a small-town feel. I’ve ignored the gloomy, fearful people who look like I’ve murdered them if I say ‘good morning’ and I’ve beamed with joy when they return my ‘good morning’ with a smile.

Right now, this is where I am.?
This is home, this is the moment I am in, this is the phase of my life I am living in right now.

And it’s good.

What is your ‘now’, and are you in it?