“It’s one of the great things about being part of church,” I said at the end of the day yesterday. There’s so much love and so much community that at times like these, when you’ve got three and a half days to pack everything up and move, it just spills out of us. And everyone chips in until the impossible is done.
So many people came to help us yesterday, and it was extraordinary. I figure anyone can debate theology, call the whole Christian thing a fairytale if they want to, or even sneer at us for being simpletons. When we love though, we go all in, and it is beautiful and undeniable.
We made it. This morning we took the last few sunny photos, locked up, handed over the keys and that, amazingly enough, was that.
The next part of the Unsettling Adventure is going to be interesting. Right now, we’re staying at someone’s house. They’re away on a cruise, so we’re here on our own with our suitcases and boxes of food-that-won’t-survive-the-lockup. It might not be permanent, it might not even be long enough to be called temporary but it is what it is and we are grateful for every day and every night.
Charlie, the forwards estate agent, thinks it’ll be 4-6 weeks before our house is ready. I’m content. Though I will miss the old flat.
It’s odd how it’s happened really - just a little too fast to process, just slow enough for us to get complete in time. The thing I know I’ve got to do now is look ahead rather than back, but there are things I will miss.
I used to wonder what happened to Will Smith after he flicked out that light switch in that Bel Air mansion. The character, I mean - the actor went on to punch aliens and Oscars hosts. Did he make something of himself at College? Found a girl, married her, had Carlton as his best man and godfather? Regularly sought advice from retired Uncle Phil?
In a way, it’s nice that we don’t know. But in another, a very real other way, it’s inevitable that we find out for ourselves. We all have our Bel Airs. And we all have our light switches. But we live beyond the story, on the other side of the credits, the studio, and the clicked-shut and suddenly quiet front door.
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