Easily Excitable

I’m a sucker for a story that begins with “When we first got married…”

Nine times out of ten, that story will be a winner, as you really can’t totally prepare for marriage.

Oftentimes, the best you can do is OTJT (on the job training). 

However, I specifically love those stories where two folks, deep in love and shallow in sense, began their lives together in a little, small house. 

These tight quarters were where they figured out what ‘life together’ looked like. Now, I’ve always heard those stories, but lo, far be it from me, Lord, I didn’t think I would grow up to live that story. 

I’m such a sucker for it, though, that Trey and I decided we’d start up this whole ‘marriage’ gig in a little single wide in the country. 

When I first moved back to Cochran, I went to live at the big house- the place I grew up.

Then, I moved to a little house in town. 

For two happy years, I lived there with one of my very dearest friends, and for a little while- namely during COVID when it really counted, I got a little taste of the real world intermingled with the best part of college: living near your best friends. 

However, when Aubri moved out (guess she just had to get married), I had to think a little bit on what the living situation would look like. 

It was time for me to strike out alone, and I did so in this ‘new to me’ single wide trailer. 

This was the place I first lived alone. That was a different taste of the real world. 

Naturally, that endeared me to this place. 

Fast forward things, and on November 12, 2022, I got a new roommate. 

This one, though, was a little different: I was (and still am!) married to him. 

And since then, we’ve been figuring things out in our little single wide. 

There is, and I say this sincerely, nowhere else I would rather be. 

That being said, let’s be clear here: 

A single wide is a single wide. 

The single wide life, though, is the life for me. Trey will have to drag me out of this place.

We live in a trailer park for one, and here are some thoughts on why I never want to leave: 

Our trailer is a family heirloom

When my parents bought this trailer off a (very reputable) lot in Twiggs County, they did it with the intention Caroline would live in it. 

And she did. 

My folks and Gran and who knows who else went to work on this 1980s masterpiece. 

Now, the fact that they retrieved it from the bowels of Twiggs is really a rectifying quality in my mind: my folks descended from the plains of that fine place. 

So, whoever first bought this old girl was probably my great cousin, five times removed, and three times related. 

Caroline lived there. Then my cousin Jacob. 

Then, I (solo) called it home. 

And finally, Trey decided he wanted to join the party, too. 

There might be a little hairline crack in the bathtub and an outlet in the living room that gave up the ghost in 1998, but we like to think that’s a sign it’s been well-loved (if not always well-treated).

The weather provides spontaneity. 

Will it be a summer day both inside and outside of the trailer? 

Will the propane run out in the middle of the night, leaving it a toasty 52 degrees?

In Georgia, and in our trailer, you never really know, and that’s part of the fun! 

For a while there, we enjoyed the mood swings of the weather so much that we refused to get an auxiliary unit. 

Alas, as we sat and read on the couch one sunny day in July, I watched a droplet of sweat roll from Trey’s nose and splish splash on the page of his book. 

It was at this moment I realized that maybe the weather’s unpredictability shouldn’t come at a comfort cost to us. 

Why pay for a sauna when, 4 months out of the year, you can live in one for free?! (minus, naturally, the astronomical GA Power bill)

Marriage is all about compromise, and when I saw the suffering of my groom, I folded to get a living room auxiliary unit, as well as a window unit. 

Did I hate to fight against our single wide?

Absolutely. 

 I wanted to bask in and take advantage of the heat. 

However, in a Georgia summertime, when you have to walk outside to cool down, you have to know something in your life might have to change. 

Small house = less to clean. 

About a month ago, Trey and I got a bug in our burr to clean the house. 

And this, folks, was a conglomerate deep clean. 

We are a ‘no man or woman left behind’ couple: what’s mine is his and all that. So, we tackled the task together.

We both squeezed into the bathroom (sized for a seven year old, mind you). He tackled the shower while I took the sink and the toilet. 

We had it knocked out in 45 minutes. 

Did we lose a couple of brain cells in the middle of our joint chemicals? 

Mind your own business. It was all in the name of a clean house, okay?

What’s more, clean baseboards are the song to my soul, and there’s a whole lot less of those things in our place. 

Kotaras for the win. 

You never forget what you cook

I write this as I have a pot roast in my crockpot. I write it with the knowledge that, for the next 13 days, we will smell pot roast in our room, in our bathroom, on our clothes, and in our drawers (the chest of, not our britches). 

I once cooked sloppy joes, and when I came to school, as I busied myself in my first period classroom, one of my kids said someone smelled like BO (body odor). 

Another chimed in and said, “Naw…that smells…it’s like food or something.”

I shushed them, and I told them that we shouldn’t talk about how people smell. 

It took a full five minutes for me to realize that it was me: I was the one who smelled like that food. 

Sloppy Joes? No more.

Salmon patties? Out of the question. 

Tomato sauces involving onions? Not a chance.

We are BLESSED. 

Thank goodness we never have to wonder about what we ate the week before.

We can smell it and quickly remember. 

Work smarter, not harder, right?

We have a plethora of wildlife. 

Wildlife is a bonus to living in the country. 

Coyotes yipping in the morning? 

Awesome. 

Rabbits scampering about in the yard? 

Love it. 

The bear that sometimes likes to chill near our scrap pile and even frequents our yard from time to time? 

Let’s go. 

The deer I can see from our living room window and MIGHT just be able to pick off from our couch in the upcoming deer season? 

A dream. 

An occasional roach? 

It’s not a bad thing: it builds character. 

Plus, trying to kill them is perfect for training fast-twitch muscle fibers, stealth, and sudden bursts of speed.

Field mice every once in a while?

Excellent- they let you work on strategy. It’s like a puzzle if you think about it. 

Wildlife, both in and around our little abode, is something to be celebrated. 

There is no bigger front porch around. 

Our “front porch” is a little wooden platform (3ft by 3ft, maybe!), replete with steps that lead down to our front yard. 

We don’t count that, though. 

Our front porch PROPER is the big grassy field in front of our home. 

Last year, one of mine and Trey’s favorite afternoon activities was taking our rocking lawn chairs and setting them up in the front yard. 

It was the BEST. 

Now that this fall weather is starting to get serious about staying around, we’re gearing up to let the good times roll again. 

Who needs a wrap around porch, anyways? 

Our neighbors are…I mean…I guess…they’re fine. 

We are situated just down the road from some folks with the last name Meadows…? 

Look, one of them happens to be our landlord, and he gives us a pretty nice rate, so we can’t complain. 

His wife is always giving me clothes, which I’ll take with a smile (you know how cheap I am). 

And I guess the kid who lives there is pretty cute, too. 

We’ll keep ‘em around. 

One of my favorite moments was last year, when my high school students meant to roll us. Rather than getting the Kotaras, they got the Meadows family. 

When I walked into their home that morning, my dad— I mean, my landlord— told me, with a mighty grin, that I better make sure my students didn’t roll the wrong house. 

He said it with his own personal flair for smart aleck-ery. 

Unbeknownst to him, toilet paper was blowing in the breeze (in his trees) as we spoke. 

When that became knownst to him, that grin slid off his face like syrup on a hot flapjack. 

No wifi makes smarter spouses. 

Once upon a time, five months ago, we had WiFi. 

Today? That is no more. 

I think there has to be a WiFi demon that has a target on Trey’s back. But God is his strength. 

I know this because I have never seen him closer to the Lord than when he’s working on the WiFi. 

Or, on the inverse, needing to repent more. 

Y’all can ask him about that. 

Somehow, my parents– er– *ahem*– my neighbors get AT&T. 

We, however, are no longer covered or in range. 

We live 300 yards away from them. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. 

But in that absence of entertainment at times, we’ve had to do things like talk to each other and read books. Ugh. What a drag. 

We’ve gotten creative with it, and I like to think that, along with watching each other in the valleys of life (i.e.- trying to get the TV to work), has strengthened our union. 

There’s no getting away from each other. 

Do you know how hard it is to stay mad at each other when your hallways will only accommodate one person and the bathroom even less than that? 

You have to do the conflict-shuffle past one another. 

It’s where you would literally rather go through the wall in the hallway than touch your spouse, so you shimmy past them sideways in tight spaces. 

It ain’t for the faint of heart. 

We live in a home where you can see all the way through from one end to the other. 

THERE AIN’T NO HIDIN’ IN THIS HOUSE.

You get to know each other real well in a tight space, and it was either going to sink us or carry us forward. 

The ship is still afloat at this time. 

I consider myself the luckiest woman alive. 

Much of this was, naturally, said a little more than tongue in cheek. 

There’s something cozy about this trailer, and it’s a special place to live. 

It’s the perfect spot for two folks who are living their best lives. It’s a little bit frat house, a little bit KMart, and a lotta bit loved. 

I’m crazy about the place, and I’m ever more crazy about the person I get to live there with.

Even when we have to do the conflict shuffle by each other in the one-foot-wide hallway. 

I’m living out a dream I never even knew I had. I can only think Trey feels the same way.

He better.