I am a creature of habit.  Who doesn’t take comfort in the familiar?  For such a good life can make!

Twenty-five years in the same bungalow where my children superglued their tongues on the aluminum swing set when dared by best friends who also opened wide on a count of three, two, one...

Fifteen with my husband in rebuttal to the adage “seven-year-itch”

Teaching multiple, preferably back-to-back, power yoga classes for students who became friends who like to come out and play

Visiting with, emailing, calling and/or texting one or both of my now grown children well-before noon...but never on weekends out of deep respect

Rabidly researching any and many things of vital interest via internet portals that move at lightening speed

Sauntering with our nine-year-old “pups” around lovely tree-lined streets before turning into bed

So how does a total creature of habit pick up and move from Delmar, New York to Portland, Maine after one - albeit spectacular - weekend visit with extended fam?  And in the single word question of beloved family, friends, and neighbors “WHY?”  

I totally get all those bewildered stares...how does one walk willingly away from such a wonderful life!?!  Starting over when if given the chance for a “do-over” of the past I’d do everything exactly the same?!? 

Stepping off the ledge.  Free-falling from anything remotely resembling a “comfort zone” is a way to wake up.  As hard as it is to let go of the familiar, unless we do, there’s little room to experience new people, places and things. 

In the anxiety of massive change, we learn to fly to avoid the crash and burn of no reference points, no go-to-in-crisis people, no familiar patterns.  Nerves light up from feeling our way everywhere we go.  When there’s no way to hit auto-pilot, we become exquisitely alive. 

The dust of the move has finally been swept away.  My heart still beats somewhat erratically but I’m relishing each deep breath of ocean in our new home.  In the bright light of our 1899 victorian house in Portland, the color of our old leather couch somehow seems richer.  Family antiques and plants that survived the transition have been polished and are rooting in new ways.  Familiar curtains that neatly fit into unfamiliar windows dance softly in the evening air.  Most importantly, now that both the kids have visited with an entourage, we’ve begun to create memories in what was alien terrain. 

The realization I can walk the back cove trail and never see a familiar face was at first perturbing.  But it’s slowly becoming okay.  Yesterday seven-year-old Ella from across the street waited for our car to pull in the driveway so she could run over and tell us about her day.

There’s no where to go in a hurry, no one to be.  We should relish such quiet moments.  

I realize in getting acquainted with my new surroundings, I’m also getting re-acquainted with me.  We can’t, nor should we seek to, replace who and what we left behind.  As a dear Delmar neighbor said as she hugged me goodbye, “Sweetie you take all those memories with you.  Leaving here is not leaving your life.”

So yes, here’s to stepping off the ledge.  Go ahead, be intrepid enough to free-fall into uncharted rich and terrifying territory.  I can’t recommend it enough!!