2019 in review: part 1

2019 was a year that brought a lot of changes for me. Some obvious, some known only to me.

The biggest change, and the one everyone who knows me is already aware of, is that we sold our house and bought a new one. This may not seem like that big of a deal on the surface. People move all the time. We only moved 6 miles from our old house, staying in the same city (Philadelphia) and the same general part of the city (Northeast). And on the positive side, we moved into a house much better suited to our family of five, almost doubling the amount of square footage in our home, adding a second full bath, and moving into a neighborhood with a much better school and much less crime.

But leaving the home we spent 20 years in, the first home we ever owned, the neighborhood where we both grew up, the house we brought all three of our babies home to, was a profound and difficult change. Especially for me, a homebody by nature. I identify very strongly with the place I call “home” — it is a part of who I am. And I still feel uprooted and somewhat unsettled even 6 months later. I know that eventually this house will feel like more of a home, and I’m still happy that we found a great house in a nice neighborhood, but a big part of me misses the familiarity of the place that was home for so long.