Saying Goodbye

What a week!  Oh my gosh.  After all of these months, we have finally moved. We have a new address and a new place to call home. Phew.  It was every bit as difficult and exhausting and stressful as everyone says.  But happily it is now behind us.

I think that moving is somewhat like childbirth.  I know it was miserable, but I don’t remember the details and now everything feels great.

The best part is that we are already unpacked and settled into our interim home (renovation started today on the main house).  After living amongst boxes for the past month, I was a woman on a mission once we got here. For my sanity, I needed a neat and orderly space.

My whole self was craving clear counters and uncluttered floor space (yes–I am one of “those”).  It was a lot of work, but with the help of my family we got everything put away and in its place.  I am feeling much more calm and grounded now.  It feels like I can breathe and try to get back to some sense of normal.

Many people have asked me if I felt sad saying goodbye.  They wonder if I am melancholy or sentimental leaving the house that our kids grew up in.

I realize that when we moved in our children were 8, 7, 5, 3 and not born.  As we leave they are 23, 22, 20, 18 and 12.  It was a very special fifteen years, filled with universal family experiences–love, joy, laughter, tears, fights, hugs and lots of growth.

While I did tear up when our real estate broker presented us with a painting of the house, that was the extent of my emotional reaction.

Does this make me cold and unfeeling?  I don’t think so.

One of the most important lessons I have learned over the years is that there is no sense looking backwards.  The woulda, coulda, shoulda’s can really trip you up in life.

When you regret, second guess, beat yourself up, long for or obsess over the things you did or didn’t do,  you are wasting the only life you have–which is right now in the present.

You cannot change what has already occurred.  No matter how much you think about something, no matter how many times you play it back in your head, what’s done is done.  You can’t magically make it different.

So if looking back is futile, the best thing to do is accept and move forward.  It is the resistance, the “I wish…..” that keeps you stuck and unhappy.

I think this is why I haven’t felt overly emotional leaving our old house.  It doesn’t matter if I wish we were still there. We are not. Nor will we ever be again.  And that is ok.  We had many wonderful years and I will cherish those memories (and try to conveniently forget the not so good stuff).

Going forward I have the beauty of a clean slate.  A new place to live.  The beginning of a new chapter.  New memories to make.

So while I will smile every time I look at the painting, I will also cherish my new opportunities and plan to make the absolute most of all of them.  Life is now.

How about you?  Do you get stuck in the past?  Do you spend too much time kicking yourself and not enough time focusing on the here and now?  This is one of the many things that I help my clients work through.  If you would like some help moving on, please hit contact in the upper right hand corner to set up a complimentary call with me. We can discuss some strategies to get you unstuck.

In the meantime I will be over here getting used to my new normal.

Hugs,

Lorna

P.S.  We can call this late or early, but either way I will be back to my regular Thursday installments starting August 14th.