It all seems like a blur looking back on it. One minute I was throwing my graduation cap and the next minute a moving van was driving away from the place I had called home for more than a decade. My parents had finally decided to make retirement their new occupation and were relocating our family home to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, a ski town they had fallen in love with decades ago.
On the last night in our Bucks County home I remember my parents sitting with me in the room I had grown up and discarding everything that couldn’t go away with me to college. Everything except what could fit in one box. “Downsizing” is what my mom called this specific form of torture.
Much to my dismay the move happened. When friends went home for Thanksgiving break and other long weekends I couldn’t help but think how selfish my parents had been. Selling the home we all shared for a fourth floor condominium that felt like a vacation rental. The house in Bucks County meant everything to me. It was the place I was picked up for my first date, and the setting of my sweet 16.
In the summer I would hop from friend’s house to friend’s house just so I could spend time with the people I grew up with. It actually became a running joke in my friend group that I was living out of my Green GMC Envoy.
After a school transfer and multiple apartments, I remember laughing one day when for the life of me I couldn’t even recall my own zip code.
The weeks before holiday breaks were the worst—people were always talking about how they couldn’t wait to sleep in their own bed and see their friends. I knew none of this was a reality for me. My room was now titled the ‘second guest bedroom’ and I had to take an elevator just to reach my front door.
While home for break last year we had just finished decorating the Christmas tree when it fell and nearly half the ornaments cracked on the tile. And at the moment, ironically, all I could do was laugh. Staring at the shards of glass on the floor I realized something that had never been apparent to me. The memories weren’t cracked like the ornaments, and the memories wouldn’t be swept up and discarded like the ornaments were moments later. Material things can be lost but memories always live on.
It turns out I was the one being selfish all this time. I was the one that had tunnel vision. Holidays can be wonderful wherever they are celebrated (even if the tree falls), and memories don’t become less valuable just because you are no longer in the place they were celebrated.
For the first time in my life I was at peace with my parent’s decision.
I (finally) believe home is wherever you are making memories.