An Ode to Closing

We closed on a house today. I felt like we should have been breaking out the champagne and sharing teary hugs like they do on HGTV, but instead we walked into an office, signed a hundred documents and handed in a check. We are actually coming in below our budget, though it still feels like a big chunk of money. Pretty much anything above one thousand dollars is theoretical to me anyway. I can feel logical about buying a sandwich for five bucks or a book for fifteen, but dealing in the tens of thousands feels more like a virtual sport.

I’d have to say buying a house ranks somewhere below shopping for a dress and above shopping for groceries. It’s more exhausting than interesting, probably because interior design and atmosphere appeal to me more than structure. I get that layout is important, though I don’t quite get the obsession with granite countertops, stainless-steel appliances, and Jacuzzi tubs. Those are advertised in capital letters and then as an add-on, oh yes, and it has four bedrooms and two baths.

I’m just grateful we found a house that suits us: open, full of natural light, relatively new, plenty of scope for decorating, and in a great community. We won’t actually be moving in yet in order to repaint and recarpet, and I’m starting to assemble those long lists of “to-dos” that homeowners complain about, like “fix the fan” and “install a garage sensor.” So right now it’s more grit than glamour. But hopefully, a few weeks from now, it will be worth it to settle into a place that’s our own.

This process has made me more acutely aware of that: this longing I have to settle down. After seven years of dorm rooms and wearing flip-flops to common showers, and six years of rented apartments, I feel ready to be in one place for a long, long time. The hardest thing about this whole process has been the knowledge that we will likely move again.

Of all the metaphors used to describe heaven, to describe this eternity of existence that seems impossible to grasp, the one of heaven as a place to come home to always struck me most, and it lingers in my mind now. Think of it as my father’s house, Jesus says, and I’m going there to prepare a place for you. After all these pilgrim years, of feeling weary or limited, of desiring more than what we can find, it will be like finally coming home. To a place where someone has longed and waited and thought about our coming. To a place we never have to leave. And the joy and rest of that must be something wonderful.