(Key: Order of Moves mentioned–East Tennessee/College to Nashville to Atlanta, then back to Nashville)

The last time was 16 years ago. The movers has just pulled out the driveway of my Atlanta home and were headed to Nashville. I remained in front of my home, sitting alone in front of my house and stared ahead for a moment before bursting into tears. That sweet house was where a rocky marriage's first three years got stabilized and where we spent the next three (plus one more to come in Nashville) very happily married. It was the home where I started my small corporate communication business and where I lived the best of both worlds. I worked hard by day and ventured across the big city to meet friends for dinners and plays and art museums at night while my (now) wuzband traveled out of town each week and came home to me on the weekends. I lived a life, pre-child as both single and married.

Looking even further back, I recall the spontaneous eruption of tears in front of my oldest sister and my mother when, for the last time, I walked the grounds of Knoxville's 1982 World's Fair where I was a communications director for one of the pavilions. I had graduated college months before and I was headed for a bigger city (Nashville, the first time) and was a leaving behind East Tennessee and a simple, pure and innocent college life that had gently cradled me four years. The next move–from Nashville to Atlanta– happened so fast and I was so relieved to find new work, that I don't think I grieved. Grieving was something I learned to do in Atlanta….

Now I am leaving my home of 16 years in Nashville for a new one in another part of town. I am leaving the house moved to after the wuzband and I left Atlanta. As I write, the tears have not come yet. Or, maybe they did already. But, as I've packed and taken down the walls and gutted the life within them, I hold sacred the journey I took within them.

Here, I entered Motherhood. Here, I birthed my only child who would three years later gift me the opportunity of my lifetime: to pool all my resources, all of me–past, present and future–to become her advocate, and one for others like her living with Autism and other disAbilities. Eight years later, her father and I would decide to divorce and manage to do so peacefully. My career took a hiatus during the first years of diagnosis-crisis. After five grueling years of autism early intervention, I resumed magazine freelancing sitting before this computer in this very spot I am writing right now. Eventually I'd become an arts reporter and arts
magazine associate editor. These walls witnessed my jump into the blogosphere and the birth of my first book. 

My spiritual journey would see me leave the religious denomination of my childhood and sample the waters of the Disciples, liberal Lutherans and find great resonance in New Thought Spirituality. Much of that time my soul ached to find a spiritual home where my daughter and her differences would be fully embraced. I cannot say that ever fully happened….I'd also leave the faith of my youth and fully embrace Universalism, with which I'd already danced for a quarter of a century.

I aged from 33 to almost 50 within these walls. My daughter went from baby to the cusp of Sweet Sixteen. I journeyed through the pains and enlightenment of divorce. And, after a year of declaring my life a temporary  "no-man's land" I delved into the drama of the first post-divorce relationship. I'd learn a lot about myself and what I wanted going forward in that two-year relationship. I took another nearly year's hiatus to heal before I met the man that is the reason for my move now.  We've been together for three years and I'm leaving this home to a new one with him, where we'll marry soon and form a family of three generations–his mother, us and my daughter. (The cat makes four, reminds The Fiance.)

So, thank you, Good House. Thank you for holding my Spirit. For moping my many tears. For resonating my many joys. Thank you for containing my Life lived Fully and Well for 16 very Good and Soul-Stretching Years. I am Grateful. I am Grateful.