The house is empty.

It’s been a long time coming, and we certainly had time to work our way up to it, but as is the way with so much in life, things move really slow, until they don’t. Since about this time last year we’ve been slowly packing and prepping for the move, but in the last month things really became urgent, and we found ourselves in the last week frantically packing, organizing, making calls, and just generally scrambling to make it happen. So we’re out — but it feels like by the skin of our teeth.

It feels like I should be awash in emotions, but strangely enough, I’m not. At least, I don’t think so. (The wife has of late suggested a few times that I could use some therapy. I’m not so sure. Feeling things is for chumps.) I’m pretty sure most of us can remember that moment from the end of the Fresh Prince where Will stands in the empty family room, blank-faced, reminiscing deeply about all the memories. I tried doing that, but it felt hackneyed. (It might have had something to do with the fact that, by the time I could slow down enough to properly reminisce, I was bone-tired and just wanted to lie down.) Fact is, there have been a few long goodbyes in our lives this year, and the thing about a long goodbye is: you get to go through all the emotions long before the goodbye actually arrives. Of course, when the goodbye DOES finally arrive, you get to do it ALL OVER AGAIN, but on fast-forward. What I’m saying is, we got a two-for-one special, and two is always better than one, with absolutely no exceptions, ever.

This year has had a lot of endings, a lot of goodbyes. Some were expected, and some were a surprise. Some were sudden, and some were painfully drawn out. Between saying goodbye to friends and family, saying goodbye to a house — even one where our kids did most of their growing up — barely registers for me at this point.

It’s weird, man. I don’t know that we *consciously* thought of it this way when we moved in, but the thought was probably there, deep below the surface: this is it. This is where we are going to live, at least until the kids are off to college. We certainly thought it in the meantime. Now that we’re moving *again*, we are definitely, explicitly thinking it — no more moves until the kids are out of here. But I guess, unless you know for a fact you won’t be staying long, you probably don’t go into buying a house thinking about when you’ll be leaving it. Still, for every beginning, there must be an ending. If you’re lucky, an ending gets to become a new beginning. (Feels like there was a song about that way back in the previous century.)

Which is where we find ourselves: hoping for a good beginning in the wake of all these endings.