How strange it is to be anything at all.

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Almost exactly a year ago, we left this view behind us forever. The old 1950s oven, the wooden deck overlooking the Sound where we’d watch the ferries, the freezing unpressurized shower, the divorced hippie landlord who always seemed to be steaming broccoli in the basement. The house we lived in after our Las Vegas wedding. The house we flooded with the broken dishwasher. The house our families celebrated Thanksgiving 2007 in. Our too-good-too-be-true little tree house.We packed up things in the truck and Andrew’s parents drove them from Seattle to Kansas. We had our final days at our Seattle jobs, and were sent off by coworkers at the Irish bar in Pioneer Square. We watched the movers come and pack up our dishes and wrap our couches impossibly well and box our clothes. We sold the drumset. We said goodbye to my parents and (temporarily) to our pup Southpaw.We left behind everything familiar to us, except each other, and we moved 6,000 miles away to London.Often, I think of this place and how symbolic it was for me and you as a pair. I think of Ballard and how we met. Of street fairs and farmers markets and camping and Forks and dog parks. The proposal, the newspaper, the Queen Anne condo, Smile Brigade, the Toyota Echo breaking down on I5, and our Thai place—the name of which you could never quite pronounce. How many miles and memories we seem to have gone through a whole year later. And I can’t even imagine where we’ll be months or a year from now…when we’re perhaps about to open a huge new chapter. Right now “home” is just a place where we are together. But sometimes, when I’m hovering between awake and asleep, I think about evergreens and driving on the right side of the road again. I think about painting walls in a house of our own. About falling asleep in a place on a coast so familiar to us.

Almost exactly a year ago, we left this view behind us forever. The old 1950s oven, the wooden deck overlooking the Sound where we’d watch the ferries, the freezing unpressurized shower, the divorced hippie landlord who always seemed to be steaming broccoli in the basement. The house we lived in after our Las Vegas wedding. The house we flooded with the broken dishwasher. The house our families celebrated Thanksgiving 2007 in. Our too-good-too-be-true little tree house.

We packed up things in the truck and Andrew’s parents drove them from Seattle to Kansas. We had our final days at our Seattle jobs, and were sent off by coworkers at the Irish bar in Pioneer Square. We watched the movers come and pack up our dishes and wrap our couches impossibly well and box our clothes. We sold the drumset. We said goodbye to my parents and (temporarily) to our pup Southpaw.

We left behind everything familiar to us, except each other, and we moved 6,000 miles away to London.

Often, I think of this place and how symbolic it was for me and you as a pair. I think of Ballard and how we met. Of street fairs and farmers markets and camping and Forks and dog parks. The proposal, the newspaper, the Queen Anne condo, Smile Brigade, the Toyota Echo breaking down on I5, and our Thai place—the name of which you could never quite pronounce.

How many miles and memories we seem to have gone through a whole year later. And I can’t even imagine where we’ll be months or a year from now…when we’re perhaps about to open a huge new chapter. Right now “home” is just a place where we are together. But sometimes, when I’m hovering between awake and asleep, I think about evergreens and driving on the right side of the road again. I think about painting walls in a house of our own. About falling asleep in a place on a coast so familiar to us.
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