Life Lessons: Fifteen years after a move
Frances Ray, whose Substack newsletter "Beautiful Strangers" is one of my very favourite reads, writes here of a visit to her former village, where she stayed alone in her former home, which now belongs to a friend, titling her post "Return to a Village That No Longer Knows Me". Her reminiscence is poignant; she says, "I realized I was in mourning. Not for the village which was doing just fine, flourishing actually. But I was missing the self who used to live there , who didn't realize the cost of leaving, a recurring theme in my life." I read that just as I approached the 15-year anniversary of the move from our family home of 25 years to a condo in another city, both dense urban settings, but so different. The moment we signed the sellers' agreement, the real estate agent viewed our home, with its doorways scored with the escalating heights of children, the permanent scars from parties and pets, and the quirky wallpaper as a cash cow. A crew ...
