I am dreaming of a new house. I had a literal dream a couple of months ago, and in it I was so peaceful and happy that it’s now the place I go to in my mind when my mind needs a place to go. The house is the exact floor plan of a home a friend built a couple of years ago, but where she sees water out of her back windows, I see trees.

The idea of moving doesn’t scare me. Even the de-cluttering and packing process sounds a little exciting, actually. We’ve been here for twenty-four years, after all, and that’s a long time. It’s just that there’s no reason to move. And there’s no place we’d rather live, at least not specifically. And there’s the financial part of it, of course. But I think of those trees out of a wall full of floor-to-ceiling windows, and every surface sparkling and new and it brings me so much peace that I go searching online to see if this house actually exists somewhere.

It doesn’t. This is a house we’d need to build, and we’d have to choose where to build it, and somehow have the money to build it, and none of that seems likely, so it makes me wonder: why am I so fixated on this house?

It’s no surprise that in dreams, a house symbolizes your life.   There is so much that is so good in my life, but I do feel an inner stirring to turn a page or start a new chapter. Maybe that’s about my work or my vocation. God knows it’s been a few years of wondering on that front. Maybe it’s about my kids growing up or a hobby I need to start. But I think it’s more about my interior life, which has been so bumpy for so long. God has wrestled a lot from my clutching hands as He’s made me open them and let so much go. My soul feels scraped clean in a way, with far less ornamentation or things-I-thought-I-needed. It was a messy but necessary process and now the walls of my soul are much more bare than they were. As I look around my physical space, I want to see that spare newness reflected here, but I don’t. There’s years of clutter and stuff that needs discarding, though I love the granny smith green apple color of my kitchen, my sweet neighbors, and the memories of my babies making forts out of couch cushions and blankets in the living room.

If I woke up tomorrow in my dream house, I’d leave my airy bedroom and make my way on dark wood floors into my spacious, bright kitchen where I’d open the windows, make my coffee and smoothie, and find a brightly-colored arm chair near the fireplace in my great room. I’d read a bit as I looked out that wall of windows to a sun-soaked path surrounded by verdant, tall trees and a good view of the sky. And I’d open the door, bringing only the most essential things with me, look up, and walk.