Finding Home
It’s a beautiful morning in Austin, TX. Today, I took the time to run to my favorite cafe near by since we ran out of coffee in the house two days ago, and this pregnant lady can’t function without her coffee. The sun is shining and I’m greeted by many smiling faces walking past me on the street. It’s so refreshing to hear “good morning” and seeing happy families walk along the path, especially since we’ve been in a pandemic for the past 2 years. Its wonderful to see that kind humanity still exists.
I’ve lived in Austin since 2019, when my husband and I purchased our first home. Though, it was quite the journey to get to here. The house we purchased had been abandoned for 5 years and was on the verge of foreclosure. Luckily, my husband is in real estate so he was able to find this property and make a good deal on it using all the tools he had at his disposal. After we gutted the house and went through all of the previous owners belongings and furniture that were damaged by mouse feces and other animals, we flipped the property and decided to make it our “homestead.”
At first, I wasn’t comfortable with the idea. I’m from a ranch outside a very small Texas town and have always been intimidated and uncomfortable in the city. I have always been surrounded by hills and valleys, with horses and other livestock roaming the open pastures. I loved the wide open spaces and now my husband (fiance at the time) was asking me to move into a home in the middle of a bustling neighborhood on the north side of Austin, just minutes from the Domain. Peace and quite is not exactly something you’d find here with the constant passing of cars and sirens.
During this time, I was also working on finishing my college degree, so I was driving a good hour to and from the house to finish my last semester. My dumb self also decided to take three studio classes on top of my thesis and other exiting courses. Needless to say, it was incredibly stressful. So, from time to time, I run home to mom and dad to get that hill country fresh air and ride my beloved horses.
Despite having a home with my then future husband, I felt “homeless.” Struggling to find jobs post graduation and also starting a career felt like a terribly unstable and unattainable thing. Trying to make friends and find new hobbies to replace the old ones created a doubt in my sense of self. Many days I just wanted to escape and go back to place I knew I truly wanted to be.
That’s the funny thing about change, over time, change changes you. During the pandemic, I married, worked, and then I left my job and took some time off to re-evaluate my life. I began searching for opportunities to work with horses and nonprofits around Austin, and I did my fair share of exploring all the natural areas around the city. I began to have a better outlook of “maybe the city life isn’t so bad after all.” Dancehalls became a place of comfort for me to listen to my favorite music and find friends amongst a common passion for dance.
This began to stir old passions in me that I hadn’t experienced in many years. Finding out I was going to have a baby made these things even more apparent. I realized that this new sense of calmness and need for self expression was a connection to this place my husband and I had built. Drinking my coffee this morning, driving through my neighborhood, and pulling up to the house we spent the past couple years working on, I realized this is home. Every memory and hardship over the past couple years has led to this point of finding myself and leading me on this artistic journey. I found my home.
