Reflections of the Way Life Used to Be

Year end reflections are prone to being maudlin and exaggerated--neither of which is a particularly attractive trait But 'tis the season and far be it for me to buck those trends. 2010 was a tough year in our household, and by comparison 2011 was positively blissful. The biggest change is that I moved out of the house I raised my children in and lived in for 16 years (the longest that I have lived in any one dwelling--and prior to that was a house I lived in in medical school and college...I did not have one of those stable upbringings that revolved around a childhood community). I moved into a smaller, more manageable sized house. The whole process took the whole year. Overkill? Perhaps, but in my defense, we are not a family to shed superfluous belongings easily. Sports equipment that was long ago outgrown and unused for at least a decade was not an anomaly in our garage. And the new house does not even have a garage yet. Our old house had a prodigious amount of storage space and exceeded it. So downsizing meant shedding 75% of our belongings. No small task. So for literally months I spent 2-3 hours each day sorting through closet after closet, choosing what would go--it was an exhausting endeavor and it was not graciously performed. I was literally bruised and battered by the process, but on some level that helped the emotional aspect tremendously. I had some significant trepidation about leaving a home where we had bee so happy and which held so many memories. By the time we moved into our smaller home, I was ready to be done with the whole process, house and all. The end of the story? The 'new' house (which is 150 years old) is home. No question about it. No regrets. And if we did have regrets, we could go back. We still own the other house. But 2011 heralded our move into the adult children phase of our lives. Hurray!