New Year, New Life

Were they going for Charlie Brown's sweater, or was it a coincidence?

For my family the new year is bring lots of changes, not the least of which is a new address.

As you can see, in true Slow Lane style our new home has pink and gray zig-zags in the dining room. But wait, there is more! Fluorescent green and black adorn the kitchen while upstairs, various shades of brown and purple that should never, ever, share the same wall are openly co-mingling. Painting, along with schlepping boxes and lugging furniture, will be filling my free time from now until the end of the month. 

Moving, for me, is as much a mental process as a physical one. I've moved more than twenty times, but it is always the same. I start out feeling nostalgic about the old place, pining for whatever it is we're leaving behind. Then the nesting instinct takes over in a flurry of unpacking and I begin to see the possibilities in the new space. After a couple of awkward days, looking for things in the wrong places, the dust settles and I feel like I'm home once more.

This move, though, has a more poignant feeling to it than usual. When we moved in here, my son was an 8th grader. As we move out, he is about to turn nineteen. Leaving my son's last childhood home behind is making me face up to the fact that our little family is changing. We're entering a new stage where so much on the horizon is new and unknown and just a little bit scary. For now, at least, the process of moving is comfortingly familiar.