I am very good at moving. Prior to committing to a permanent location and man I would sign a new lease every six months to a year. I even spent a year backpacking across this country and a few others. I love the change, the revaluation, placing my hands on each of my items and falling in love with them all over again, or purging unnecessary items.

I think that moving regularly creates a change and flux necessary in life. It removes the possibility of becoming stagnant and complacent with the life one is creating. Because that is the hope, that we are creating our life, not letting it happen to us. It causes you to reprioritize and reset so that changes are possible. That being said it’s also super duper hard to do, especially with three children, but I would rather focus on the positive side effects.

Love is an easy concept for me. I love the places, like all the places. I have always had a strong nostalgia for the places I have lived and the people I have met. Since having my own gaggle of kiddos the places I have lived hold a new importance in my life. When I think of our first family home where my son was born, my impressions are nursing my him in the living room, or placing him in the yard to play with our dog Levi. It is not the orchard blooming in the spring time, or the waterfall in the three-tiered garden that now holds significance. When I think of The home where our first daughter was born, I remember people coming in and reading to her on the couch or teaching her to wash dishes in the sink with me. What no longer the first response is the fact that the home was the perfect size for us, or that from the kitchen window you could see the whole valley. And when I think of the home where our last child was born I remember the difficulty in becoming a family of five, I remember my daughters laugh every time somebody came to the door and I remember watching my children sitting on the front porch sharing a bowl of watermelon. It is not a relevant fact that the house was 9000 ft.² or that it was the cultural hub of the community at one point in time. When I became a parent to each one of my children something that previously held important faded away and my house became a home to my family.

Beyond just the views of the physical location that we live in, having children has also changed my relationship to the items themselves in my home. Items that were once prized possessions that I thought I would see in my final days have now become replaceable objects. Every day I wake up with a peace in my heart accepting that today something might get broken or that today something may no longer be needed, and that is OK. I also find that many of the objects in my home I have held onto because they were given to me by people I love, some of them no longer with us on this earth. I used to think having those things around me brought those people and their memories closer to me. What a realize now is that my children are component parts of the people I have loved. When I look into their eyes I see each of my family members, when I hear their laugh it reminds me of time well spent with loved ones, and so while those items are still wonderful and still adorn my home does not mean I need to keep all of them forever.

So if you find yourself on the eve of a move welcome the opportunity for reflection and growth. It may not mean the same thing to you that it does me, and that’s great. Let it open your eyes and then share that with the rest of us in the comment section below.