Change

This was written two-ish weeks ago. I’m posting now as even though the feeling is no longer as acute, it forms part of the journey I want to document : )

I’m feeling increasingly nostalgic about the flat, even though we’re still living in it. It’s been on such a journey with us!

When we first moved in we were a few weeks away from getting married, living between two counties and relatively harmoniously with the cockroaches that infested the flat.

It had a weird smell that took a long time to disappear despite 256 deep cleans. There were dark, burnt patches on the ground in the small bedroom which looked like someone had lit an open fire in the middle of it for some kind of ritual. The walls were grimy, the kitchen looked like the aftermath of a science experiment gone wrong. It was wild, but we knew it had the potential, and we were willing to fight for it.

Over time we stripped it back, broke down walls and put them up elsewhere, and gave the space a new start. It became our home and over time memories were created that have become part of the fabric of the building.

We wrote out place cards for our wedding on our first dining table.

We hosted possibly the most drunken night, drinking cacasa cocktails with our siblings when we got back from our honeymoon in Brazil.

I told Lanre we were expecting our first child together after rudely rushing my sister out of the flat so I could tell him the news.

My waters broke in our kitchen while I bounced like a kangaroo on the medicine ball after three days of early labour and numerous false starts at the hospital.

I can still feel the magnitude of bringing our daughter home for the first time and placing her car seat on our kitchen island, staring at her with that new parent mix of awe and terror.

I recall the nights we stayed up late, sitting on our bright green sofa, plotting how we would afford to build the house on the plot of land we had just stumbled across.

In summary, that’s almost six years of straining to hear the tv over the constant hum of the London south circular through our single glazed sash windows, almost four years of parenting, two years steadily working towards our move-in date, and the 14 months we have now spent every day in each others orbit within our four-roomed haven.

To be exact, that’s 5 years and 9 months of joy.