Packing Up a Life (While Not Actually Leaving)

The boxes are packed.
The movers came.
The truck is gone.
And suddenly… there’s nothing left to do but feel it.

There's a special kind of strange in packing up your entire house and then not getting on a plane.

For months, this move has lived in the land of someday.

Someday we’ll sell the house.
Someday we’ll pack everything we own.
Someday the movers will come.
Someday we’ll get on that one-way plane.

Well.
Someday showed up.

And now our Kansas house is empty.

For the next few days, this house that has held so much of our life is just… ours to walk through.

Hello, cry ball.

I thought I was ready for this part.

I told myself we had already done this once. We moved across the country and started over before. We figured it out. We built a life from scratch.

We did it once. We can do it again.
But believing you can do something doesn't mean it doesn't hurt to leave.

Because this isn't just a house. This is the house where our babies took their first steps. Where tiny feet ran down the hallway. Where we celebrated birthdays and Christmases and ordinary Tuesday nights. Where we learned how to be a family in our own little corner of the world.

This was our first home away from the life we grew up in.
The place where we started fresh. Together.

And somewhere along the way, the neighbors became friends.
The friends became the people we could call when we needed help.
And those people became family.

That's the part I don't think you can put into a moving box.

You can pack the toys, wrap the dishes, label every box and check every list. But, you can't pack up the memories or bubble-wrap the friendships.
You can't tape shut the little pieces of your heart that are still sitting in the corners of a house you're leaving behind.

So today, I'm letting myself be sad.

I'm letting the empty rooms feel heavy and the tears come.
Because this chapter holds a special place in my heart.

I’m so grateful for the life we built here, the people who made it feel like home, and for every greasy fingerprint that decorates these bare walls. It’s in the ordinary moments that somehow we created our story; and it all began right here.

Now, I’m trying to remind myself:
We aren't leaving our life behind.
We're taking the best parts with us.

So goodbye, Kansas house.
Thank you for being ours.
Thank you for holding us while we became us.

I'll close this door with tears in my eyes…
and open the next one with hope in my heart.

Italy, we're coming. But first, let me cry in this empty house for a minute.