I don’t know what it is about visiting Knoxville, but I always come home feeling clear-headed and refreshed. I think it’s partially all of the time I spend at the cemetery, as it’s become a cathartic place for me to spill out all of the thoughts and emotions I’m too scared to share with anyone else. But, I also think it’s largely because of Emily’s parents who, despite losing their incredible daughter who they loved dearly, somehow continue to find the strength and tenacity to live their lives to the fullest.

Regardless, I pulled into the church parking lot this past Sunday nearly an hour before handbell rehearsal, ready to hit the ground running. And although every part of my body aches as I’m laying here in bed writing this, I can confidently say I’ve lived my life to the fullest this week.

Finding a Place to Call Our Own

The story of how Emily and I started living together is hilarious and very much one of my favorite stories to tell. And, if you knew Emily at all, you will probably read this, shake your head, and say, “Yep, that’s Emily.”

Also, I’m going to preface all of this with two details I think are important:

1. Emily would occasionally crash at my place even before we started dating, especially if she had been drinking or if something was broken at her apartment (which happened more often than you’d expect).
2. Emily’s ex-boyfriend did some really weird stuff for about the first six months Emily and I were together.

Emily and I started dating on April 24, 2021 (yes, I will always remember this date). From that point on, we pretty much spent the night with each other 4-5 nights per week, with the majority of those nights being at my place because it was cleaner and I have 50-50 custody of my children. However, she had just renewed her lease back in February and I had signed a lease for a new apartment that would start in July, so our sleepovers weren’t really us moving in together… Yet.

In early June of that year, the kids and I were taking a nearly week long trip to California. Emily offered to take care of my cats while we were gone, and I said that was fine even though I knew she really couldn’t do anything with the litter boxes and would mostly just be filling their food and water once or twice (I had gravity feeders).

Well, I came home to all of her “essentials” moved into my place. And when I say “essentials,” I don’t just mean a toothbrush and her daily meds… I mean about 3 weeks’ worth of clothes (which I could justify by saying I had a washer & dryer in my apartment but she didn’t), an entire box full of makeup, and several other random things I don’t even remember at this point (probably Molly Dolly and her school textbooks, maybe some other things).

The best part? She wasn’t even home when I walked into my place — she was at work. In fact, I took the time to pick up dinner for her and run it by her client’s house (she was working in home health part-time) and she made no mention of all the stuff she’d moved in when I saw her.

From that point on, we really only slept at her apartment once a week just to check on things and save ourselves some driving if she either had to work in Nashville that day or we went to Lipstick Lounge or similar for a night. But, she kept her lease and I really made all the decisions about setting up and decorating the apartment the kids and I moved into that July.

When Emily’s lease came up for renewal the following February, we made the decision to make our living situation “official,” and she didn’t renew her lease. We also decided when my lease came up for renewal, we would instead look for a place together — our first home (sort of).

I remember the weeks we spent looking at places in April 2022. We determined a price range based on what each of us could comfortably contribute towards rent, and we had a list of “must-haves” along with a separate list of “nice add-ons.” And, as soon as we toured the facility and townhouse we ended up moving into, Emily and the kids were all in agreement this was the place for us to call our own.

There’s Never Enough Time

If Emily had lived to be 100, I would have gladly spent every single day with her for as much of that as I was alive for. But, goodness, she is not a fun person to move with. For starters, she was a bit of a hoarder and simply had too many things, nearly all of which she insisted on moving with us (and most of it is still boxed up in the garage). But also, getting that woman to remain focused on a single task was a tall order, especially if it was something like packing or moving. But it happened, and we celebrated our first night in our new place discussing all kinds of future plans we had for decorating and making the space truly ours together — the Glosson-Hardin home.

But, Emily started her new job the same week we moved. We spent most of June adjusting to her new schedule and cleaning out the final things from my previous apartment that we had to be out of by the end of that month. July and August were a blur of unpacking in chunks, making trips to Knoxville since Granny was mentally declining and moved into a nursing home, and our trip to Florida. We did make a fair amount of progress on unpacking, getting the kitchen fully organized, and setting up the bedrooms in September, but then those final few weeks we had became quite stressful with Emily’s symptoms, not to mention we were excitedly focused on wedding planning more than decorating.

And, next thing I knew, I was standing a halfway unpacked living room, completely alone, holding onto Emily’s purse, wondering how the hell I was going to continue living… period.

And a single thought clung in my mind: “We didn’t get enough time!”

Finally Ready to Make It Home

I’ll be honest: I don’t think I started fully feeling like myself again after Emily died until about… Well, two or three weeks ago. The first six months are this sort of blur with a few bits and pieces of memories here and there, and the rest of that first year I was primarily in survival mode. Then the second year was kind of this weird see-saw where I would toggle between “it’s time to pick up the pieces” and “crap, I shattered it all again.”

But, as I sat on a blanket beside Emily’s grave last Sunday morning, sobbing for nearly 20 minutes, I suddenly knew that it’s time — it’s time to make this place home.

It’s a notion I’d started thinking about around the same week I reached this strange sort of acceptance about my recent breakup, but hadn’t yet developed into a full-time scale plan. That notion turned into a game plan as I made the drive back to Murfreesboro from Knoxville last Sunday afternoon.

And although it’s going to take some time to really make this place home, the ground work is already started:

• I have Junk-Bee-Gone coming to haul away all the stupid boxes in the garage this upcoming Friday along with a couple pieces of furniture in my home office that I no longer need.
• I have taken Friday, Nov 1 and Monday, Nov 4 off work so I can put all of my energy into clearing out trash and other waste.
• I scheduled a professional cleaning service to come help me tackle all the things I’ve be putting off (or two distracted by grief to really handle on my own. 

After these things happen, I’m going to recruit some friends (hopefully) to help me organize and decorate.

It’s certainly not what I envisioned life looking like today, and I’ll always wish for more time with Emily so we could have made this townhouse our home together. However, I am finally ready to start building a life again, a wholehearted life with a home I feel safe and happy living in at the very center.