Emily Timbol

I moved yesterday. It was a spur of the moment move, which is something I’m sure I won’t be capable of doing later in life. In the span of one day, starting at noon and ending roughly at 10:30pm, I packed up my entire bedroom, moved all of its contents to my new room 2 miles down the street, unpacked all my stuff and re-assembled it, cleaned up my old bedroom and bathroom, and returned to my new place where I sat on my bed thinking, “What the f*$@ just happened?” That’s a perk of not having a lot of things, and living pretty simply for a 25 year old, I can be sitting there playing Angry Birds in my PJs one minute, and the next decide to pack up and move everything I own in the course of one day.

Granted, I had plans to move out in the beginning of January, so I knew this was coming. However, last night, while tossing and turning and unsuccessfully falling asleep it kind of hit me; the house, room, neighborhood, and routine that I have known for the past 15 months just vanished, poof, into the air. I like to think I’m a lot cooler than I am, and in my mind, cool people have no problem packing up and moving, and can just go with the flow without needing time to adjust. They are wanderers, and home is not a place, but an experience. Apparently, I am not a wanderer, because last night, after the third time I woke up thinking, “Where am I? What’s going on?” I realized that this whole move is going to be a lot harder than I thought.

I know that I made the right decision to start this new chapter of my life. Yes, it’s a little crazy and scary that I’m going from one roommate to four (five in April) and from living with one single woman to one single woman, one married couple and one single dude (who will be part of a second married couple in April.) And I know that it will not be easy, it will be work, and it’s going to be vastly different from anything I’ve known. I knew that from the moment I agreed to be a part of the house.

What I didn’t know was how hard change is for me. As much as I love to write on the virtue and value of change, and lament on how lame a routine life is…..I had a pretty routine life. I didn’t have to think when I was driving to work, coming home for lunch, sitting on my couch at night watching MTV shows that made me feel like the world’s smartest person; I had done it so often  it came naturally. It’s pretty sad when “watching MTV” is something you can say comes naturally for you. Writing that sentence kind of made me hate myself.

My life had gotten so routine that sadly, there were not many occasions where I needed to use the creative or innovative part of my brain. Which is probably why my writing has stalled so much in the past 6 months.

So as nervous as I am about this new journey, there’s also a part of me that’s excited. Excited to get to know my new house mates who are normal, interesting, funny, real people who have a heart for the community and want to see it change. Excited to see what adventures we get into as we open the house up as a place for people in the community to see that not all Christians are weirdo’s who want to shame them. Excited because as scary as change can be, it always gets my creativity going, and inspires and motivates me to write. And also super excited that my living expenses are officially cut in half.

The good news for you is, there should be a lot more posts on the way, since I won’t have cable, and I get really annoyed trying to watch my MTV shows on the internet. I mean, the ads are so juvenile, it’s like they think teenagers are the ones watching “16 & pregnant.”

So here’s to a new year, filled with new experiences! Glad you’re going to be there with me.