Dear Apartment 9F,
To my childrens’ first home—I guess this is goodbye. I didn’t know I’d grow to love you as much as I did. I remember walking in, newly married, seeing the empty walls and the few pieces of furniture we had brought over from the US. We started and grew our family here. You’re the only place my kids ever called home. It was here that both kids rolled over for the first time, started to crawl, and took their first steps.
It was here that we brought home our baby girl home from Okinawa after being transferred there for my third trimester. I remember putting her in the baby swing when we brought her home and her looking up at the lights in wonder.
All the warm summer days we spent on our balcony, with naked baby girl laying on a towel after bathtime doing tummy time. At night, listening to soft, lilting music under the fairy lights. On the other balcony, a small garden that we planted and grew alongside our daughter as she got bigger each summer. Our walls became more decorated. It became more of a home every day. It filled up with more and more memories of our time here in Japan.
Thank you for the comfort you lent me while my husband was deployed for all of those long, lonely months when our daughter was just a little 2 year old.
It wasn’t just the kids who grew in this home. I grew up, starting my own marketing business. Kicking my drinking habit. Discovering my passion for strengthening communities. Finding friends who connected deeply to my heart and the core of who I am.
When carrying baby #2, you kept me safe and sheltered during that too. Bringing him into this home, things became a little more crowded, but held a lot more love. A lot more chaos, a lot more noise. The transition to being a mom of two.
Cheers to all of the family meals we shared in this house. The lively Christmas parties, the homey Thanksgiving meals, the boodle fights with our tiny two bedroom apartment bursting at the seams with our closest friends.
Getting my daughter ready for her first day of school. Straightening up her uniform day after day, putting on bandaids, braiding hair, packing bentos.
Wiping tears, kissing booboos, comforting after nightmares. Sharing giggles and inside jokes with my husband and with my kids, creating memories with the people who mean the most to me. Growing together day after day, year after year.
Play dates with cycles of friends who moved in, moved out and moved on already. Pieces of my heart involuntarily taken, split apart and moved around the world as friends move away again and again.
Our quiet nights at home for movie nights, blanket forts on rainy days, snuggles on the couch, and family dance parties. A stark reminder that life progresses. That home is where our family goes, and where the military sends us. But still, it all began here, in these 4 walls.
Thank you for everything you were to my family for the last six years, Apartment 9F ❤️
