The Practice House

Teri and I moved in to our current house together in December of 2009.  At the time we called it our "practice house" and I still think of it that way.  When we moved in, we knew we wouldn't be here forever and as two women who have each moved over two dozen times in their lives, we weren't particularly disturbed by that fact.  We still aren't.  There are things we adore about this house and things we don't but the one thing we can say is that it has served its purpose and given us the space and opportunity to come together as a couple and a domestic team--with all the bumps, bruises, and belly laughs along the way.

Teri and I were not giddy or confident when we decided to move in together.  In fact, we were more

typically wary and cautious.  The one thing we knew was that we wanted to choose and move into a new-to-us place together.  We had both seen multiple couples struggle and crash because one moved into another's space and there was an extra power imbalance from the beginning.  Sure, it can work, but we wanted to start fresh, together, and on as even footing as possible!

For those who know us and were privy to the details of our cohabitation--they know that even with our care and attention, it was rough going for the first couple months.  It took us a while to create shared space that wasn't overly Kori or overly Teri.  What I remember about that time is that throughout the tears and the insecurities, we both kept declaring that we were determined to figure out how to do it and that we both had confidence that we would get to the other side.  We did.

The Practice House has been a gift--we are also convinced that this is a great place for us to have our wedding ceremony--even though we don't plan to be here forever.  A few people have asked us why would we want to have our ceremony here when we don't plan to stay?  For us, our ceremony and celebration is a bridge between what has been the early years of courting, building a friendship and establishing a strong partnership and the commitment to spend the rest of our lives together.  We live in constantly transitioning times and Teri and I have both developed strong "bouncing" skills as I like to call them: her upbringing and early adulthood as part of military families and my years as a single parent have given us a comfort-level with the impermanence of life.  We have strong senses of loyalty and rootedness, but we tend to carry them with us as opposed to investing them in a place or a building.

As we start to think about where we might like to live after the ceremony (and we actually are beginning to imagine a move at the end of this year), we both feel grateful for our years here in the Practice House and confident that this time around, instead of two separate people with all their boxes and baggage, we will be moving forward as a cohesive team.