As readers of the blog know, I'm not a person who enjoys change very much.
It's not that I don't want things to change—I do. But it's hard for me. It causes me a lot of stress and anxiety and sometimes it's so overwhelming that it's difficult for me to really process. When confronted by radical change I tend to go into "survival mode" and I get through it on adrenaline and by doing things without thinking about them.
It's not a particularly nice way to get through things.
Which is why change for me tends to come in spurts. There will be lots of change and then several years where I am completely resistant to even being open to change.
I've been very resistant to change for the past three years.
Things were so crazy for us when Malia was acting. We were constantly traveling. When we finally were home after her television show and DVD series wrapped, I was numb. I tucked myself into my house and ducked my head.
For years my husband and daughter have wanted to move. But I have never been open to the idea. It seemed too stressful. The process of Brad and I buying our house, our first house, in 2003, was so overwhelming that I told myself I was never moving again. Years passed—always feeling as if there wasn't enough time and wasn't enough money to dive into doing anything more to the house than what was mandatory. The result was we bought a fixer upper that never got fixed up.
Fifteen years later, our little house is in need of major renovations.
And change is coming whether I want it to or not.
Malia is going to go off to college next year. Our whole world is changing. Where there were, what I like to call us, Three Tylers. There will only be two. And the house that was so great for Malia as a kid is quickly becoming a looming financial burden.
We have almost 7000 square feet of yard that we have never properly managed. Some of our plumbing is from the original house (built in the 1940's). And the electrical wiring will all need to get redone before any major improvements can be made.
In other words, our house will require hundreds of thousands of dollars of renovations in the not too distant future.
So we're thinking about moving.
Just the thought of moving causes my heart to race because this little house, that's worn down, has been my little piece of heaven for the last 15 years. And thinking about people coming in and looking at our house with a critical eye makes my heart hurt. My identity as an adult is so closely wrapped up in the idea of "my house" and "my address."
But just like having Malia move away and go off to college won't actually make our family a different family; moving doesn't mean I won't have a home.
This past weekend, Brad and I went and looked at some condos that are on the market. The first couple of them didn't feel right. I was worried that maybe I would never find anything that felt right. I kept thinking back to our house.
But then at the final stop that our realtor had planned, we toured a place that we loved. I could see myself living in it. Brad and I both felt the same way about it.
And a feeling of relief washed over me. It made me realize that I can live somewhere else and have it feel like home. As we looked over the different rooms, we talked about where we would move stuff and how we would fit our cars into the garages. We talked about old furniture we would get rid of and new furniture we would buy.
And for the first time in almost 15 years, I actually believed that the feeling of "home" wasn't directly tied to our house. Having my husband, my daughter (when she's visiting), and Pidu our dog, and our two crazy cats in a place we are comfortable in is what makes a house a home.
We might not be able to move to the place we saw, but at least we know now that there are other places besides our house that we could see ourselves living in.
And even though it's still sad for me to think of someone coming into our house and painting over Malia's growth marks that we loving wrote on the doorjam of the hall, it doesn't change the fact that she grew up. And leaving behind the white tile floors in our entryway that I love seeing in the mornings doesn't mean that there won't be new things I'll look forward to seeing when I wake up.
And the memories won't get left behind.
I will always love our little house. I will always remember it because it was exactly what we needed when we were here. But changes come and it's time to be open to discovering a new home for our family. And our new home will not have less heart.
My mom and dad are also going to move out of their house in the not-to-distant future—a house they've been living in for over 35 years. So I asked my mom about her experience:
When you first thought about moving out of the house, what was your initial reaction to the idea?
My initial reaction, I must admit, was fear that I won't be able to pull off the move because of my limited energy due to the chronic illness I've been struggling with for over 17 years.
I was surprised that I didn't feel sad about moving out of the house where you and your brother were mostly raised. I thought about why this might be and I think it goes back to that chronic illness. I've spent 17 years adjusting to a vastly different life than I ever thought I'd be leading. I thought I'd still be working full-time. I thought I'd be out and about with your Dad. I thought I'd still be traveling to visit you (readers may not realize that I've never even seen your house even though we're only about six hours' drive away from each other).
I think being chronically ill has made me less attached to things in general because I've had to un-attach from most of my expectations about how my life would unfold. And so, for the most part, I don't mind moving from this house even though I love it and have so many wonderful memories of it. I was surprised to find that I'm not particularly sad about it.
You have already done a lot of packing and decluttering. What has it been like to go through over three decades of memories?
It's been a mixed experience. I loved filling the garbage can with things I no longer use. I loved filling boxes with things I no longer use but that someone else might want. It made me feel lighter than air. (Unfortunately, some of that clutter is already sneaking back, so we'll have to do another round soon.)
I loved the process but every once in a while, I'd come across a memory (such as a photo or something you or your brother made) that stopped me in my tracks, sometimes bringing tears to my eyes. I have a special box for those things and they'll be going with me.
Is it hard to imagine yourself having a different address?
Yes, that is definitely hard to imagine! In fact, it feels unreal to me to not have this be our address. After all, it's been our address since 1983!
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