New Beginnings

Moving Day.

It is time for a new beginning. Today we get our keys for our first owned home together and we start a new chapter in a new place.

We will be saying goodbye to the home we have lived in for the past three years. The place we brought Timothy home to. The home where we went through the journey to his diagnosis and the first 2 years of life with a child that has a disability. This is the place we grieved for his future and the place we came to accept a new future for him. This house has been filled with some of the lowest moments of our marriage but it has also been filled with love, perseverance, commitment, and growth in our marriage.

As we’ve been leading up to this move I’ve been thinking about how much our life is going to change. Although we aren’t moving far from the city, as I started to set things up I realized we will have a whole new schedule and routine. There will be a shift in our everyday life. And although this change has been months in the making it will happen in a way that is all at once.

Hailey will be attending a new school in a different school board. Coming with it new bell times, new bussing, new teachers and new kids. Charlotte will be attending a dayhome once a week, the first time she won’t be babysat by my family. And Timothy will be plopped in a completely new environment where at first everything will feel like a threat to his safety.

Of course all of those changes have a flip side too. Hailey will attend school with most of the same kids all the way through grade 12 and has a chance to make life lasting friendships. Charlotte will get a chance to socialize with other kids more before kindergarten and experience more independence. And once Timothy learns his space it will be his to keep since we won’t be living on a year to year lease.

See there are two sides to the story as there often is. Something I’ve been working on learning since Timothy’s diagnosis is that positive and negative feelings can coexist. It definitley doesn’t come naturally because it is confusing to feel tinges of sadness over a happy situation. And with the move it has been hard to navigate these coexisting feelings.

Most of the time I am so excited. It’s all I can think about and all I want to do is plan out the home decor in my head. But sometimes a little fact hits me and has me in tears. Like the fact we won’t see Grandpa everyday at school pick up, or the fact Hailey is nervous about having no friends, or the realization that if James is still working away I will be very alone now that I live farther from my parents.

I find it hard to express these negative feelings because I never want to make it seem like I am unhappy with our decision or not excited to meet this BIG goal of ours. Of course I’m happy and excited but I’m nervous and maybe a bit scared too.

I need to honor those negative feelings so that when we go to pick up those keys this afternoon I can fully appreciate the positives of this new chapter.

This is a goal years in the making and we have finally reached it. Buying a house was always important to us but after Timothy’s diagnosis it became the highest priority. We wanted a place he could get comfortable in that we didn’t have to leave. We wanted to be able to make adjustments for him. And it was important for us for the girls to have a steady home growing up. We’ve moved with Hailey three times before this and didn’t want to have to keep doing that to her, especially now that she is in school. We wanted a place Charlotte could make friends and feel comfortable enough to talk and participate in her environment. I know that the community and town we chose will make all of these things possible for us. And I am excited to live somewhere different, I’ve never moved out of the city I was born in. I think that this will be a new chapter in our family unit that will help us grow closer together.

These are positives feelings I need to honor.

Sometimes in life we get to caught up in how we are supposed to feel about things that we can’t even figure out how we really feel. But life isn’t black and white. This week has been full of grey areas. I’ve switched between sad and happy tears, excitement and anxiety. And although it can be confusing and feel wrong, It’s all a part of the journey.