I have often mused about how hard transitions can be—even the good ones. This year, my family seems determined to test that theory from every possible angle.
Our youngest graduated from high school and left for college. I finished my master’s program. Our oldest is navigating what comes next for him in early adulthood. And, because apparently that wasn’t enough change for one family, my husband and I decided to sell our house and move.
We are moving back to a community we know and love, closer to family and dear friends. This move feels right for so many reasons. I know it is right for my husband and for me.
I’m realizing this transition is changing far more than the logistics of where we live. It is reshaping our roles, our family identity, and even how we see ourselves in this new chapter.
I knew moving meant packing boxes and painting walls. I didn’t expect painting my youngest son’s bedroom to hit me quite so hard.
One minute, it was still very much his room—the place he had slept just weeks before—and suddenly I was taking down the things that made it his and covering the walls with neutral paint for someone else’s family.
That was when something about this transition became very real to me: when he comes home for break, he won’t be coming home to his room.
Our kids won’t come back here and automatically fall into the familiar rhythms of the place where they grew up. They won’t meet their high school friends in the same familiar spots and then walk back through our door. The house that has been the center of our family’s life won’t be ours anymore. And that brought up far more emotion than I expected. Because I’m realizing that I’m not simply moving out of a house. I’m moving out of a stage of motherhood.
Until just a few weeks ago, this was still the place both of my kids called home. My youngest had barely left for college when we began packing up the life he had just stepped away from. We chose this timing because we knew we were ready for our own next chapter, but I don’t think I fully understood what it would feel like to change the meaning of home so soon after he left it.
I can be excited about where we are going and still feel the loss of what we are leaving behind. And mixed in with that grief has been something I didn’t expect quite as strongly: guilt. Are we doing the right thing? Am I choosing what is best for my husband and me when some part of me still believes I should be choosing what is best for my kids?
We have talked about the move extensively with both of them. They are young adults now, beginning to build lives of their own, and I know our decisions can’t always revolve around creating the same home base they grew up with.
But knowing that and feeling it are two different things. I’m still their mom. I still worry about how our choices affect them. I still want home to feel like home when they come back to us, even if it looks different now.
Maybe that is the deeper transition I am moving through. Motherhood isn’t becoming less important, but the role is changing. For years, so much of my identity was wrapped up in creating the home my children lived in and returned to. Now I am learning what it means to be their mom when home is no longer a particular bedroom, house, or town—and figuring out who I am in this next version of our family, too.
What does “home” mean to you when the people, roles, or routines that once defined it begin to change?
With resilience,
Kristie and the Dovetail Learning Team