Things I Find in my Basement #30

When we moved into this house, it was 1994.
We had two kids and three pets (a dog and two cats).  Today we have three different pets (a cat and two dogs), and three kids.  

You can talk to your children about moving.  They can tell you about their anxieties.  You can figure out how you're going to deal with it.

Pets are affected profoundly by a move. They know something is up, because now we are spending a lot of time opening boxes, and putting things in boxes, and taking things out of boxes, and throwing things away. They have no idea what is going to happen, how far we are going, and what their next home looks like. And if they could ask me, I could only answer some of their questions. 

My family moved only twice when I was a kid, and I was too young to remember either move. As a young adult, I moved all the way across the U.S. three times, and on one occasion I moved up the street.  

By 1995 or 1996, when my oldest son started elementary school, I had already stopped feeling like I could move again.  Family moved to Seattle.  School felt like a good fit. We figured out where to walk the dogs, where to buy groceries, dentists and eye-doctors, and how to get rid of an old couch. 
 
In 1998, something impossible happened: my father died. He was never old.  He was working, and then he was sick and then he was dead. In 2004, a second incomprehensible thing happened: my mother died.  She was never old.  She was working, and then she was sick, and then she was dead.  For me, surviving things that I never envisioned opened up the possibility that other bad surprises were waiting for me.  It also made me realize that I could get through things I thought I could not handle.