We moved this weekend. And we had just moved 10 months before, out of the house we had planned to stay in forever, before everything fell apart and ended in divorce.

The boys and I stayed in the house for a while, and then made the decision to move into a smaller house down the road. Geography, we hoped, would ease the pain from the past. A new home, we hoped, would hold us just as we were, instead of serving as a constant reminder of where we'd been. 

I won't go into the entire long story, but this weekend we moved back into the house that was ours when I was married.

Even though we only lived in the new house for 10 months, the gratitude I have for the home swells inside my heart and raises goosebumps on my skin. Unable to really let go in the house where my marriage crumbled and my addiction soared, unable to see our future without the grime of what was, we felt stuck. Memories caught us off guard when we discovered a hanger full of ties that never got moved, or a drawer containing a photograph of the four of us together, smiling. We couldn’t move on because everything held the scent of our past, and the aroma wafted in and out as it pleased, never asking us if we were ready to meet it.

Moving out, and into a new home, allowed us to live without the nagging reminders of someone missing. Living in a new home allowed my boys and I to huddle together as a three-some, and experience our togetherness without the fear of what was.

Living in a new house allowed me to become more confident, as a woman and mother, in my choices and my capacity.

But now, when the opportunity presented, we all made the decision to move back. Yes, we moved back into the house we just left 10 months ago, but with the shifted perspective of moving forward.

We had to leave first, in order to heal enough to realize it was our choice to remain.

Healing, moving forward, and moving on, means changing more than geography. During the move yesterday, my oldest son panicked. He said the house brought up all the anxiety and bad memories from the past. Then I panicked - oh my God, this was the wrong move. I have re-traumatized him. 

We went back into our house from the last 10 months, to grab a few more things, and stood in his bedroom, now empty. We cried. And in the middle of feeling like I had failed my son, AGAIN, and wondering why I couldn't get anything right for him, I found the words:

"Baby, of course you are sad. This house healed us. We grew together here and we grew stronger. We will always remember this house."

After a good night's sleep we are all feeling more settled this morning. Nothing is in this house to jump out and catch us off guard. Nothing is the same. We are not the same. This move back, is our move forward.