“The bricks and mortar will be left behind. But that’s all.”
So you’ve made the decision to downsize from the family home. Just as a new family outgrows its existing space and needs to expand it, so too large a space can become difficult to cope with, unnecessarily expensive in its upkeep and needs to be compacted. There might be a specific reason – for mobility or health reasons perhaps; or because you want/need to release some capital to hit the bucket list – or any number of indeterminate things. It could be that it simply just makes sense.
Regardless of the reason, it’s hard to move it forward without swimming your way through a rushing river of nostalgic images. It’s the home you moved to when your first baby was on the way: Where you’ve piled your children into the car for school every morning and brought them home every night battling to get homework done and dinner eaten: Where you’ve seen them leave for football practice, Uni, for travelling; pushed them out of the door to work; where your daughter left with her father in a London taxi for her wedding; where your twin boys celebrated their 16th birthday without destroying the place; where the garage roof blew off in a huge storm: Where you found the neighbour’s cat shut in a cupboard having her kittens; Where you’ve shared multi-generational Christmases and hosted any number of celebrations and impromptu evenings.
Dame Margaret Miles once said –
“If you have a problem, until it is resolved, you pack it in a case and take it with you wherever you go.”
It’s the same with memories. When you downsize, you pack them up and take them with you. They aren’t staying behind or becoming any less valuable just because you are transferring your lives to a new location; into another building in a different place, where, trite as it sounds, more will be created and added to your album.
