Sarah D. Shearer

On December 7th, 2019,  I will begin the greatest adventure of my life to date: becoming Lucas’s wife. This has been the desire of my heart since I was a little girl playing house in my backyard, sweeping my playhouse porch, making meals of sticks and twigs, and dressing my baby dolls.  For many years, I wondered if it would actually come to pass. Would anyone ever see me as a fit partner for life, as lovely, as capable. The answer was yes, after much doubt. To further confirm that Lucas was the one for me, he presented me with another priceless gift besides his love: a beautiful hundred year old farmhouse. His grandparents purchased the home in the 1940s and built it up for decades, creating a sprawling home with eight bedrooms and a bocoodle of character. 

I knew from the beginning that Lucas loved the home and wanted to raise his family there, so as we pulled into the driveway the day we started dating, I took it all in and asked myself if I could see myself living there. A hazy imagination of a life there took root, but it definitely didn’t feel like home. 

How exactly does one feel at home somewhere? I lived in the same home for twenty four years, so I never really had to learn to make another home, home. I then moved to my garage apartment, knowing it was temporary, so I never really expected  it to feel like my forever home.  But this, this is different. Not only am I moving to the farmhouse, but it is full of 60 years of furniture, of memories, of pictures, of life lived by people I never met. My new home is full of beautiful things I get to use, but I did not pick out. How do I learn to feel at home somewhere where everywhere I turn there are things I am unfamiliar with, but they are now mine? 

I have always dreamed of making a home, and this is truly a dream come true, but it’s a hard dream. It’s a dream that will require years of work and perseverance. It’s a dream that allows me to inhabit a place full of life and heritage, but it’s not a fresh start.  How do you feel at home? We are starting by picking out paint colors for our bedroom and bathroom, and by dreaming of the home we wish to cultivate.  I don’t quite know how to leave and cleave. How to remember that I always was a Taylor, but will soon be a Shearer.

How do I process that I am starting a new and wonderful family, but it will be different than I pictured and that’s okay. How do I find home in an unfamiliar place and find myself as I lose many of the things that made me myself?  No one told me this about getting married. But that’s okay. I know I am only at the very cusp of this grand adventure, but writing about it helps me figure out what I am feeling. 

I guess what I am trying to say is this: it’s okay to be really excited to start a new life, and also kind of sad to leave your old one. It’s okay to be thrilled to have a beautiful home, and also reticent to call it yours, because you feel like a kid playing house in your mother’s parlor, serving tea on trays that aren’t yours and that you didn’t buy. It’s okay to be overjoyed to become Mrs. Shearer and also kind of bewildered to be leaving Taylor. It’s okay to be in the middle.  So if you are in the middle of excitement and also a little sadness, it’s okay. I’m with you.