If These Walls Could Talk

They would tell you about the sometimes serious but always funny antics of a young man and woman in their earliest stages of marriage. From the first night there, marked by undesired change and familial interference, to the last night spent lying in bed sort of reflecting but mostly laughing about our favorite memories. There was so much life there in that 814 square foot apartment – love, laughter, passion, emotion, anger, friends, family – I’m emotional even now just thinking of it all.

I keep reliving a scene from last night where I stood for a moment and tried to let everything I could remember from our time there flood my mind. Nothing, save a leftover shower caddy and a few marks on the wall, was left to show me anything of the parts of our story that stemmed from this setting. I don’t even have pictures to remind me. And so for just a minute, I captured everything I could, switched off the light, and locked the door for the very last time.

But I didn’t leave it and it didn’t leave me. The sound of that light switch going off continued to echo in my mind and heart as I drove to our new home, turning away from that entirely empty and utterly spotless apartment. An apartment no longer inhabited by the two people who had spent their last two years in it, probably not loving it nearly as much as they should have though they loved it as fully as they could.

Our routine will probably be off for just a little while, but with that will be discovery and joy walking right alongside. We noticed last night, lying in our old bed in our new home without window dressings, that we could see the stars in the pitch black outside our home. Already we’re looking forward to the next rain that makes sort of twinkling noise on our roof and the vent above our stove. Even the sun slowly rising this morning all around us glowed in a way I don’t ever remember it doing before. And the roses are in full bloom just outside, adding to my 10 foot walk to the car a beautifully fragrant romance.

And so we have begun seeing this part of our story written in a new setting. But setting is not just a place, it is a character too, adding value and humor and challenge and foundation to the life of people in it. I am thankful even now for what this place has and will mean for us in the future, meanwhile knowing our story just wouldn’t be what it is without 1505. Because walls do talk, even if only in our memories, in the same way the oldest stories of men were carved into the rocks of the world.