Moving On, Again

"I'm movin' on
At last I can see life has been patiently waiting for me
And I know there's no guarantees, but I'm not alone
There comes a time in everyone's life
When all you can see are the years passing by
And I have made up my mind that those days are gone.

I'm movin' on."

                                   -Rascal Flatts

So summer is more than half done and the Back-to-School advertising is out in full-force.  It is shocking how fast the time goes, especially when things are changing. The news is all good news, though, and life moves forward no matter how little sleep I get or how many moments I forget to record.

My family and I are on the move again, this time to the lovely small town of Merrimac. I will be saying goodbye (again) to my hometown. The brief year and a half return was both fun and strange. Plenty of people from the past still hang around town and running into them is always a trip into the past. It's fun to see where people have gone and who they have become. But there are many ghosts, many reminders of a past I don't want to live with, and plenty of reasons to be glad that I am moving on.

So once again I am putting our lives into boxes and figuring out what I want to keep and what will essentially get left behind. The thing is, I love both the act of purging things we don't need and also carefully keeping the things I want to remember. (Any thoughts on the wedding album from a marriage-gone-wrong? Will the kids want it when they are older??) I have to admit, I have kept only a small stack of kindergarten art pieces. There are just too many to hang on to. Not sure what impact that has on my Best Mother Ever status. I also have to admit to keeping a box of baby clothes- my favorite ones that instantly bring me back to those moments when my babies were tiny enough to tuck into one arm. So it's a healthy mix of things-to-go and things-to-keep.

So while packing is never any fun, taking inventory of our lives certainly is. There are no more strollers but lots more art supplies. Fewer sippy cups and board books but plenty of skateboards, backpacks and sparkly sneakers. We're taking all of the Disney movies (even though they prefer Ninjago and Power Rangers now, for the most part) but tossing the baby monitors and any size clothing that includes a reference to their age. And I'm taking the newest version of me that has learned much from this latest stage of my life and leaving behind any lingering doubts that I could handle it on my own.