The end and a beginning

Without oversharing, I've made a huge change in my living situation. I sold my home of many years to a couple who wanted the house very much for themselves and their kids (understandable given how much I enjoyed raising my family there) and as a result, everything is in storage as I explore where I want to live next. I'm currently bunking with friends near where I grew up in Ohio and the local housing stock is surprisingly nice and affordable compared to the New York City metro area. I might be staying here a while (well the plan is 2 years) unless it's just too hard to imagine living anywhere else except near the Hudson River. 

Hard to put in to words how it feels to have severed my connection to my home of 3 decades, the garden I loved and the many friends and memories made. Looking forward is the only option and one I hope will fuel me through this new chapter.

Update (it's been a while)

It's been nearly 30 years to the day that I embarked on the adventure of homeownership (I had already been bestowed upon in the parental department with the birth of my first child Max) so I was not a novice at 42 to adulthood and responsibility. By 40 I had worked for many years as a photographer trying to deliver a sufficiently compelling and believable result such that I got paid for my effort and expenses regularly- so I understood what it meant to be reliable. Still, the 360 months spent as steward of this house in this pleasant suburban development along the Hudson River has been the longest ongoing relationship of my life and given that one day soon I intend to sell the house and depart the neighborhood- this chapter will be a part of my history and no longer my present. A very sobering thought!

I am excited at how that will feel. No longer sleeping in a room where two of my kids were conceived, no longer washing dishes at a sink where they took their first baths or when I sit at the kitchen table I remember the countless meals the five of us once took routinely as a family. All of these memories percolate at will and randomly and without the house itself to act as an incubator of the past who knows what will bubble up next.

I can only express gratitude for all the good there was and that we had the inner fortitude to muster what life gives, takes and expects. Sleepy Hollow has allowed me to create, parent, garden, work, recreate and love in ways I could never had imagined when I moved here.