Muscle Memory

Moving to a new house is a strange experience, and moving to a different city just increases the strangeness exponentially.  I look around and see our things, but it still doesn't feel like our home.  It's still too unfamiliar and alien to be called home, yet it is.  We're here so it's home.

When we repeat a task over and over again, we develop a muscle memory for it.  From playing a musical instrument to a habitual routine, our brain locks in those movements and we can perform them with little to no thought.  I seem to notice this most when we move to a new house.  My hand keeps reaching for the cabinet to the left of the stove to season my cooking even though the spices are now kept to the right.  I automatically turn to the right of the sink to load the dishwasher in spite of the fact that it's clearly on the left.

But more than my muscle memory is the feeling that I have one foot in Oklahoma and one foot in Cypress.  This morning as I came in from waiting at the bus stop with Gracie, I looked over at my keyboard and had the urge to sit down and play.  Tripping on the heels of that thought was that I could just run up to the church and practice on the grand piano there, with the quick realization that I couldn't do that anymore.

Yesterday as I was coming out of Target (which has a layout just like the one in Owasso), I forgot for a split second where I was.  I had a brief moment of confusion when I didn't see the Justice for Girls and Kirkland's as I left the building, then felt foolish as I walked to my car.

I keep seeing people from Oklahoma while I'm out running errands.  I suppose it's because I saw people that I knew so frequently back home and would stop and chat, that my brain still subconsciously tries to match what it sees with what it knows.  I've done so many double takes over the last two weeks that I'm surprised I don't have a mild case of whiplash!

I know it won't be long before I settle in completely and I develop new muscle memories, and I stop thinking of our new house as a really large hotel room.  But until then, don't be surprised to see me walking out of Target with a confused look on my face.