endings

everything ends eventually. knowing this, endings still makes me sad.

john paul and i have been renting our house for almost four and a half years. it is a house that i have struggled with (see the endless struggle to get it clean and tidy and the cyclical battle with the garden), but it is a house i have loved. it matched us well. it has enough space to accommodate all of our junk (ok- it's mostly mine) and still feel like we have room to be comfortable. it has a warm-and-cozy-home feeling (wendy especially appreciates the kitchen couch. every kitchen should have a couch so friends are comfortable while they keep you company in the kitchen; cooking and talking together, you can't beat that.) we love the fact that we can both work in the same room - in our sewing & computer room. the house has giant armoire trapped in the bedroom (somebody walled off the only door that it might have fit through) that is a perfect art cabinet. and the trampoline fits perfectly in the back yard.

alas, our very nice landlady has just declared bankruptcy. the only way she can keep her house is if she moves back into it - so, we get the boot. we have to move out by april 1st. i know that many of our friends move houses all the time; it's no big deal. but, this is the longest i have lived in any one house since my mom and i moved to england after my freshman year of high school. i used to thrill at the idea of a new house - new space, new possibilities. but now i feel settled. we have finally gotten this house to work for us. we've come up with good solutions to some of its initial problems. rationally i've always known that we don't own this house, but we've lived in it as though we do. i even had plans to paint all the rooms this spring. yes, i should know better than to attach so closely to things, but what can i say?

it is true that we have been talking about the possibility of moving out of houston soon. we've been thinking about austin, washington, dc, or nova scotia, among others. but we won't be ready to move by april. the out-of-houston route is contingent on my getting into an mls program. i have been steadfastly failing to complete my applications and take the stupid gre.

so now i feel this totally overwhelming pressure to get my act together. but even if i do, we won't know if i've been accepted into any given program before april 1st. so then should we sign a new lease? can we find a nice place we can afford with just a 6 month lease? what am i doing with my life? and why? loosing the house has sort of forced many issues i have been neglecting to think about.

so that's where i am. does anyone have any advice? (besides, "relax - it is just a house. it's not that important"?)