To the uninitiated it might seem I am always on the move. In fact, to me it seems that I am always on the move. This month I am again moving home. It sometimes seems like we just got here, yet it will have been just shy of 4 years in this house when I leave (including the 6 months I wasn't here but my stuff was). I'm leaving under much different circumstances than I moved in with - a dream lived and died in this house. But other dreams have taken its place, and this move will facilitate them.
In fact, 3 years and 11 months makes this one of the longer stays in one residence for me, certainly as an adult. In 48 years I've now moved 24 times* (including 2 moves in Kingston, which felt like homes; but not including two years in university dorms, which never were home for me). You'd think I'd be good at moving, and with my spreadsheets and sticky notes and 'moving tool kit' and penchant for organization maybe I am, but I still hate it. I have friends who have moved even more frequently and think nothing of it, but for me, having created a real home, there's always some sadness in the leaving.
And this has been a home. It's the first home I've created with a partner since leaving my marriage, and we moved in calling it our love nest never thinking the honeymoon would end. It's been a safe space for my sons to come and go from. It's hosted parties and Christmases and Easters. We jumped feet first into the gardening, and soon discovered it to be a mud bog of effort though it still creates beauty and joy. I doubt I will ever again have a kitchen I love as much as this one - it's sunny, and spacious and warm and there's room in it to share work and laughter. I don't love cooking, but I love cooking in this kitchen.
The condo I'm moving too will also be a home. My sons will again come and go. The 'stuff' that makes a place mine will surround me. It will, in time, host its own parties and Christmases and memories. I relish the bigger bathtub and the in-suite laundry and no longer having the least-attractive commute in Victoria. I can't wait to be walking distance to stores and restaurants, and to be more convenient for friends to come by or meet for coffee and walks. It will be a good space - one I hope to stay in longer than I've been here.
It's time to go. It's time to close this chapter. But if there are tear stains on some of the tissue-wrapped photo frames, I'm sure you'll understand why.
* The rundown, for those keeping track:
- Quesnel - 1
- Kamloops - 1
- Prince George A - 3 (?)
- Chetwynd - 3
- Prince George B - 1
- Aldergrove - 1
- Port McNeill - 2
- Fort Saint James - 2
- Castlegar - 1
- Prince George C - 2
- Victoria - 5
- Kingston - 2
