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One of our sons’ friends stopped by, over the Thanksgiving break. He is the youngest child in his family and a junior in college. His parents recently sold their big, suburban, family house and have settled into a smaller duplex in a charming, up and coming town, a few miles down the road. His parents originally planned to build a big house on the water, but scrapped those plans, as they found that they liked the freedom and ease and coziness, that the new condo provided for them. Our sons’ friend, having spent his first holiday in his parents’ new dwelling quarters, was decidedly unhappy.

“It was just so weird . . . just so, so weird . . . WEIRD!” he kept repeating to us, almost as if stuck in a mind-boggling loop of thought and agitation and confusion. Witnessing his friend’s obvious distress and disorientation, our middle son spoke out.

“Don’t ever do that,” my middle son ordered at us, in a very serious, firm tone. “Don’t move. Ever.”

I found my son’s edict amusing. It’s not like we are The Waltons who have lived in the same house for the entire existence of our family life. Our middle son has lived in three different states and five different homes, since he was born. Still, myself, remembering the first time that my parents moved into a home that I had never lived in (for me, that was even after I was married), I remember feeling that same zombie-like uncomfortableness that my son’s friend was feeling. For the first time in my life, my parents’ home was truly and completely THEIR home, and not really MY home anymore. And that signified more than just their physical dwellings.

It’s rites of passage like these, that clearly delineate the fact that our parents are their own people with their own lives to lead, and not just the designated heads of household, leading the family ship around the vast waters of our lives, while we “rebel”, but still hang on to the safety ropes, pretending to ourselves and to others, that our parents have handcuffed us to those ropes. It is a dawning moment when you see your parents move on with their own lives and experiences, because it is moments like these, that more clearly point out the hard and true fact that your own individual, independent life, is really just your own. While still being loved, and cheered on, and hugged from time to time, your rope has been freed. Sink or swim, your life is truly, your own. Your life is your own.

I think what got me into the same woo-woo, weird mental state as my sons’ friend, was the sudden dawning that the torch has really, really been passed. It is now our children that are no longer seeing us on our pristine pedestals of knowledge, authority, and leadership, but more fully understanding that we are just two people who co-created them, along with the Universe. My husband and I did our best, to give our four children a healthy, loving, secure start. Still, for all of our family members’ sake, my husband and I now have to put more of the focus back onto our own lives. We do this with the faith and with the trust that our deep, abiding love for our children and their own inner navigation, with guidance from Above, will carry them on with purpose and meaning and hope, in order to create the adult lives that they are now only just embarking on, with dreams and visions of mighty futures.

Another hard truth is, with as much feeling and meaning that we attach to a lot of our physical things, a house is just a house. It is just a safe place, a dwelling, a nest to come home to and to rest. Nevertheless, as we constantly grow and change in our needs and in our ways, the permanent fixture of a sturdy, firmly planted house, sometimes no longer fits our new selves nor our new ways of life. And as safe as a house makes us feel, a house is destructible. A house is in a constant state of decay and disrepair, and in decades to come, even the oldest and most well-preserved of houses, will no longer be here nor be remembered. What IS steadfast and what will never be destructed, is the love that created the family and the memories and the experiences and the growth and the support that was contained, all inside of the house. That love is carried on to every home that every family member will ever dwell in. After the initial shock of realizing that parents move and change and age and even pass on, I hope that all children, of every age, will realize that their true home and the true home of everyone who they care about and even people whom they just meet, dwells inside each person. Love is their real home, and it is kept safely and securely and deeply, in the beat of each of our own beautiful hearts. And it is indestructible.