A Different Move

I figure I might as well write this while I can. By this time next week it will be just too difficult. I'm preparing myself for the move back to the Midwest. Moves for me have always been easy, but not this one.

It seems every move until now has been more exciting than the last. I was eighteen when I moved out of my parent's home and, as with most teenagers I was excited to be on my own. Not going to college made my first move away a permanent one. I was moving to a big city (well, big to me) to take my first full time job. No moving back home for summer or winter breaks. Even though that first move was to a spare bedroom in the home of a Methodist minister and his wife (funny story for another time), I loved that big sunny corner bedroom.

Subsequent moves coincided with different life events. Moving into my first apartment with roommates, a little bungalow after getting married, a bigger house and a new baby, purchasing my first home after a divorce, a temporary apartment while building a new home with a new husband, moving into that new home thinking we would be there a long time, moving to new jobs 3 years later in a new city then upsizing 2 years after that to accommodate a blended family, and finally to downsizing here in NYC. Every time my general mood has been upbeat, excited, with a sense of adventure thrown in.

I have talked to people who are just contemplating a move and are reduced to tears talking about it. They are living in their dream home, or all their babies were brought home to that house, the pets are buried in the back yard, they have spent hours doing projects together to get it just like they want it. I couldn't understand what the emotion was all about.  I've loved my homes, spent hours decorating them, documented wonderful family times in them, but I've not been sad upon leaving them. At least not until now.

As I remove art from the walls, gather up knick knacks, throw away delivery menus for our favorite restaurants, and look out at the cityscape I am filled with an overwhelming sadness. The Wee One learned to walk around the ottoman, the sectional has slept many dear friends and family, I found I really like a galley kitchen, and I have appreciated that every kind of culture is right outside my door. I've loved handing over my keys so friends can explore the city even while we were away having an adventure of our own. I don't know that I will ever live in a place like this again.

Yes, this move is different. There is something about this home, this city, and this experience that will stay with me for a very long time.