I love your brain

Today is our last official day in our (former) home of over 30 years. A home that housed first my grandparents and mom, welcomed both me and my brother as babies as I recently learned, and then me with various roommates and eventually my own family. It’s been the home both me alone and together with my husband have both lived the longest and the only home Cole has known.

Leaving it is a necessity as we’ve needed a different sort of space for Cole a decade. We’ve needed a different bathroom set up with a wider hallway that would allow us to use a bath chair support that wheels from his bedroom to the bathroom – that doesn’t require us to carry him to and from the shower, angling him just right so he’s not bumped into walls or corners. We’ve needed more open space so he can easily be wheeled throughout, or be seated, whether in his wheelchair or on a designated chair, so that he can be more part of daily life.

To be fair on this point, as with most young adults, he has little interest in hanging with us while we cook dinner or watch the news in the morning, but not having the option has never sat well with us (as evidenced by the countless attempts to find a non-wheelchair chairs that adequately support Cole’s challenged body. That’s a whole other story but we did recently discover that the Love Sac framed chair suits him fairly well so we’re adding it to our new family room with the hope that he might change his habit of only hanging in his room in our new space.

We’re still in the throes of packing up the last of our stuff – a process that feels freeing in many ways and difficult in others. Far too many memories tied to things that then connect to the human aspect of the same memories that tug at the heart. We’re doing our best version of Swedish Death Cleansing (IFKYK) so that we can travel into this next chapter less tethered to things and stuff.

Tomorrow will be a jumble of emotions and a lot of work and more than anything, a fresh beginning together because wherever we three reside will always be home.