No turning back

Sunday night our world changed.

It was something I thought I was prepared for, but the emotional roller coaster I have been on this week might say otherwise.

We accepted an offer on our house. A great offer, with a quick closing date. They had no house sale to worry about and we have no purchase to worry about. It is a match made in the heavens. Literally. Divine timing, following your path and all of that.

The people who are buying our home seem like a good match. They are moving back to MN and want to start a family close to their parents. That they saw our home and felt the way we did about it makes all the difference. They fell in love and that makes it easier. Notice I didn’t say easy. Just easier.

I don’t know that I can quite capture just how much that home meant to me, despite all of the negative feelings I had towards 15 years of ever-rising property taxes (which caused an ever-rising mortgage payment) and the fact that I preferred the lack of neighbors we were blessed with for the first 10 years after the market tanked. It is still our home.

WAS our home.

We raised our kids in that home. We made incredible memories, we had fights and parties and sleepovers, we had pets we loved, we lost pets we loved, we turned it into a sanctuary among the garbage that is life. I thought we had built the home to last our whole lives, never realizing just how much we would change in 15 years.

With our oldest living on her own, and our youngest being the exact opposite of a cookie-cutter kid, this lifestyle was starting to suffocate us. I realized that for sure when I quit sitting on the front porch, my favorite place besides the backyard, because we now had neighbors. I knew something had to change.

I’ve been looking back at the last 15 years and realize I am now at the place where I can’t complain about all the trials and crap that happened over the years, because it made us who we are today. It gave us our edges, our voice, helped us find our path. It let us make mistakes. it gave us opportunities we might not have had otherwise. It made us stronger. It gave us what we needed to become better as people, as individuals, and as a family.

When you find that your life is taking you away from what is “normal” you also find what is important. It isn’t a place. It also isn’t necessarily the family you grew up with or the person they tried to raise you to be. It is more so the family you make for yourself throughout your life and the person you WANT to be.

The sisters who found each other after 35 years and feel like they’ve known each other always. The best work friend who gets you, who you have little inside jokes with that nobody else understands. The boss who taught you everything she knew how, because she wanted you to do well. The coworkers who are like family because they lift you up instead of knocking you down, they cheer for you, they help you find your light. They embrace you because to do otherwise would go against everything they are inside.

The people who count on you because they see something in you that you just can’t see in yourself. The people who put you in charge and give you responsibilities you never dreamed of, because they know you can do it. Even when you think you can’t. They push you because they don’t see you the way YOU see you. They see all the possibilities. They support you because they want the best for you even if it means more work for them.

I will miss them because they are the people who helped me become who I am. The close friends, who will remain my friends even though I am a world away. Friends who went out of their way to help me, to take a chance on me out of the blue, to love me and my family like their own. The people I work with who became my family, inviting me to share birthdays with their kids, and call me right away to share the news (good and bad). The friends who hug me and freely give me love every time they see me. The friend who offered to let me leave my piano with her for at least the next three years. Seriously. That kind of commitment takes someone truly special and will never be forgotten.

That is what I will miss. The people I leave behind. The people I will not forget to visit when we come back to see family…and “family”. The people who I will plan my travels around because I know they’ll be in this place at this time, and I can get there to see them!

I also know exactly what I will NOT miss.

I will not miss the work that went into the house or spending all our money paying for it. I will not miss the neighbors. I will not miss being in Minnesota in the winter. I might miss the snow, but absolutely not the winter that goes from November to June. Definitely not that.

I am not going to miss the lunacy of the holidays and the passive-aggressive digs thrown out by people who call themselves “family”. I am not going to miss being judged and found wanting by people who call themselves one thing and show the world an entirely different kind of beast.

I will not miss being made to feel bad about wanting something different, or being someone different.

Now that I am faced with the reality of our decisions, I am so excited I can barely function. The prospect of getting on a bus and traveling the country is finally a reality and I have never thanked my angels harder than I have been this last week. This is the best Christmas present I have ever gotten and it wasn’t just given to me, it was taken from me.

I have a feeling 2020 is going to be a big year for the Kavanagh family and I can’t wait to live it!