Saying Goodbye – Moving & the Next Chapter

After my parents moved us from New York to Florida, they were divorced when I was 3, and from then on my mom had to move us from rental to rental each time the rent was raised. As a kid, I actually enjoyed it. I got the chance to redecorate my room each time like painting a new canvas, but once my mother remarried, we settled in for a bit longer. The house I just moved out from was owned by them and then passed to me when they divorced. I’d been there since I was 18 years old until now.

As a photographer, I of course felt the need to photograph every bit of this home to remember it before we left. Thinking back to the many homes I’ve lived in, I wish we had taken photos of them as well.

I walked the perimeter of the home to catch all of the signs of age and life. The house was built in 2005 and has served us well since then. You can see all its scars and life marks from over the years.

After a house is built, it no longer stands as just wood and cement crafted together for a sale. It becomes a home where life happens. It witnesses sadness, love, sickness, happiness, anger and yelling. It stands over you as winds howl and rains fall. It becomes part of your life.

As I said before, I’ve lived in many houses but I was surprised to find that besides the home my parents built when we moved here in 1989, I’ve never felt sadness when leaving any of the others as I have now. I’m surprised because I experienced a lot of horrible things under its roof; sickness near death, a toxic relationship, ptsd to the point where I couldn’t sleep in my room for a while just to name a few. However, despite all of those things, the one thing that remained constant was this home. My safe place to go when I needed comfort.

New Beginnings

You may be wondering why I would leave that home if it meant that much to me. There’s several reasons, one being my mom needing to get out of the place she was living since a rise in crime, but also to start fresh and begin a life with Kelsey of our own making. I wanted to leave behind all of those bad memories so we could start our life on a good note.

Saying Goodbye

Seeing the house empty for the first time in 16 years was surreal. Dust bunnies rolled along the floor and our voices echoed off the walls.

I’ll miss the beautiful light that came through the windows, and the trees I grew in the yard.

However, I won’t be far away. In fact my mom is moving back into the house and we will only be two blocks away. While its comforting to know she will be there to care for my trees and to fix up the house the way I couldn’t, it won’t be the same will it? Now it will be her home. Thats the way it should be though.

Through it all, life continues to go on and new memories are made. I’ve always felt that life is like being on a runaway train, and we are all hanging on to the outside. People drop off and pass away as we keep going in the distance, but we continue to hold on until we can’t anymore. There’s nothing we can do to stop it. The only thing we can do is enjoy every second we have while we are still holding on.

The Next Chapter

Our new home is beautiful, and we are very excited and blessed to have it. We will have room to grow our family, and I am already getting to know the light this new place offers.

Im going to be taking a lot of pictures in this house. I can already tell. I hope you’ll stick around to see the next exciting chapter in our lives.

PLEASE take a moment to sign up to get my articles in your inbox!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this soppy love letter to my old home. As an artist I often feel the urge to express myself in this way and I hope you can relate.

Until next time, stay motivated and keep shooting.