Twenty Something Boxes and A Couple Rolls of Packing Tape

It is amazing how quickly you can pack all the things you consider yours using twenty something boxes and a couple rolls of packing tape. Just when you aren't sure how you are going to do it, you find yourself packing the last few items you have been holding off on into boxes. The last pans. Your tea pot. The baking supplies. The silverware.

Monday marks moving day, an impossibly fast approaching date that seemed forever away when we accepted the offer on our place and heard news that our offer on our new house had been accepted a month ago, but now it is three days away.

I knew it would be stressful, moving to a different state, but I didn't think it would hit me this hard. Last night was my last night volunteering at Barb's Precious Rescue and I found myself unable to even say a proper goodbye because I was fighting back tears. I cried the whole car ride home and into Brandon's arms once I got there.

Today, I found myself near tears checking out a library book because I realized it was the last one I would check out from the library I have gone to my whole life. I found myself thinking of all the places I won't go to regularly anymore and all the people who are there, most just acquaintances, but who are familiar and comforting to me.

I am finding that it is not the act of packing my things that is making me so emotional. It is the fact that there are so many people, places, and experiences that make me feel at home that I can't take with me.

The thing that is getting me through this though, besides the occasional, emotional cry, is that Brandon and our three fur babies will be in our new home with me. We have a sign on our wall (currently packed in a box) that says "Wherever we are together, that is home." It may sound cheesy, but it is true.

There are so many people and places in this town that I will miss seeing on a regular basis. I have lived here my whole life. How could I not miss them? But I know that moving to a new place is a fresh start, a chance to find familiar places and people to call our own, together.

Moving doesn't change the fact that familiarity is comforting. It doesn't just instantly make us forget the things we associate ourselves, our home, with.  It just forces us to find new familiar things to find comfort in. I don't know what they will be yet, but I know that we will find them.

Wisconsin here we come!