It’s a strange thing to have a blog where you share a part of yourself and your family with readers you may or may not know. What is private becomes public as much as I allow it to do so. And today I share what has been a private decision because I trust and love the community we share in this space. And because I believe our transitions and our places matter.
Today is the last Sunday we will spend in this house. I am sitting on the back porch we built several years ago savoring one more cup of coffee and a bit more time in this spot that has been a respite more days and nights than I can count.
We have lived in East Tennessee our whole lives apart from the 3-4 years we moved away for graduate school. And we have lived in this home nearly ten years. But later this week we will make the most major transition of our adult lives when we move to Birmingham, Alabama. To say this is bittersweet is a gross understatement of the emotions we have surrounding this change. We go knowing we have bathed this decision in prayer, thoughtfulness, conversation, and even counsel. And yet we go clinging to our favorite people and places, wanting to take each of them and even this silly porch along with us.
This is the place where two of our girls have grown from toddlers into teens. And one from a baby into a big kid. This is the house, the yard, the driveway, and the neighborhood that holds a decade of our most special memories.
The rooms around me have played host to baby showers, birthday parties, Christening luncheons, Halloween gatherings, Thanksgiving meals, Christmas Eve potlucks, cookouts, and dinners. We’ve talked and toasted with friends and family on this porch.
But for all the holidays and special occasions celebrated here, this house has been witness to even more of the most ordinary and mundane of moments. To diaper changes, bottle feedings, afternoon naps, and tea parties. To Play-Doh making, couch cuddling, cookie baking, LEGO building, Barbie playing, TV watching, and sibling fighting.
In the den a baby took her first steps, and in the playroom a preschooler broke her arm. There is a bedroom where a tiny dancer learned her first releve and an office where a budding pianist played her first note. This is the yard where we first welcomed a hyperactive dog into our lives and next door neighbors into our hearts.
This is the driveway where three kids learned to play badminton and basketball. This is the cul-de-sac where we pushed tiny girls in strollers before they took off on scooters. And this is the street where training wheels were tossed aside and bike riders were born—all on the same hand-me-down pink princess bicycle.
This house and this particular street is the physical place that holds ten years of our lives. This town holds the first (almost sixteen) years of our marriage. All five of us have done a lot of changing and growing up in this place.
Tomorrow we’ll begin the dismantling. We’ll start taking down pictures and artwork and the shelves that hold our worldly possessions. My oldest keeps asking if she can take some Polaroid pictures before we undo everything so she can remember what it looked like here.
Of course, I’ll oblige her. But I know, as anyone who has moved before knows, that she won’t need pictures to remember this house or these years.
You’ll never convince me that our places don’t matter. It’s not the bricks and the mortar, but the memories they hold. The stories they tell. The growth they bear witness to over time.
Even still, the people in those places matter more. We may take a piece of all our places with us, but we hold people in our hearts forever.
And so, as we go, we’ll be taking a lot of boxes—and a lot of people with us. Our address is changing. But our love for this place and our people here never will.
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