Ever look back through the chapters of your life? Not in a regretful way, but just to observe where you’ve been and what you’ve gone through in the hopes of seeing where you might be headed.
The same way we sort through our “stuff” and reminisce on items before pitching what we’ve outgrown, every now and then I do this with my past. As the decades continue to collect on my watch, I remember old addresses and the person I was when I lived in them and remark on how those experiences shaped who I am today. Like the fire in our house when I was five, the 200-year-old Amherst home I lived in after college that was freezing all winter, or the mouse traps in a Bronx apartment that forced me to push pass fear and empty them on my own. And it is within those memories – at those addresses – where growth happened.
Last week I moved a client from New York City to St. Louis. In her early 80s, she’s called home to many places over the years, but this move she said will most likely be her last. Over lunch one day she shared a memory about her first home, a one-room apartment in Manhattan where she lived with her mother. Though her new apartment in St. Louis boasts 16 closets and magnificent views, it is that tiny first place she will no doubt always look back on most fondly.
For many, change is hard. But it can be truly rewarding. My client knows this and has embraced her next chapter. Every time we move we leave a little of ourselves behind, whether it’s material or emotional, but like a crab, it’s only the shell that gets left. The important stuff, the good stuff, that we take with us.
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