Well, I've come to the point in my life where I'm once again sitting in a sea of boxes. We've moved again and I'm trying to sort out where everything goes and honestly trying to sort out why we own some of this stuff in the first place. I walked into my bedroom last night, looked at the small area of the floor that is not covered in boxes and noted a newborn onesie, a wetsuit boot, and a name tape from my old Air Force days. Whoever came up with the principle of "everything in its place" was probably trying to help someone like me. These moves make me feel as though the TV show Hoarders may show up to film my house at any second. I imagine my reaction to the crew showing up would be somewhat indignant at first and then a shrug while saying, "Yeah, you've got a point."
Moving always makes me contemplative. Aside from going through all those sentimental items that only come out when we move, there's something about leaving a place where you've lived an made memories that always makes me a little bit sad, even if I wasn't too attached to it or didn't live there very long. We only lived in D.C. for two years and it's not really my kind of city, but we had an amazing church there and some great friends. It is always hard to leave those things.
The other thing that gets me about moving is the kids. With my littles, two years makes a huge difference. When I moved to Washington state 4 years ago, all I had was this:
Then, when we moved to D.C. two years later, I had these:
But leaving D.C., our family looked like this:
The days seem long, but when I look at these pictures, I can't figure out where all the time went.
If moving away from somewhere makes me melancholy, the other side is also true. I love the idea of moving to a new house, having a clean slate (at least until the boxes show up), and looking forward to God's blessings and how he will use us in this new place.
