Symmetry

Twenty years ago this month we left our home in the seaside town of Little Compton and moved back to the East Side of Providence.

Today we are leaving our Providence home (sold at last, thank the Maker, and to a wonderful family with young children) and moving to our new bayside home in Warwick.

In those twenty years, we bought and renovated two houses, laid to rest our three old dogs, watched my stepdaughter enter Brown and graduate, lost my stepson to drugs, gained three adopted children from Colombia, surprised ourselves by conceiving a fourth child nine months later, became a family of practicing Catholics, lost all four of our parents and all but two remaining aunts (one for each of us), ceded custody of our troubled oldest adopted son to DCYF, proudly married off my stepdaughter Leslie to her long-time boyfriend Jon, brought home Daisy the supermutt from the Providence pound, watched with pride when our second-oldest adopted son prevailed over learning disabilities and the wreck of his first three years of life to graduate as an honor student from an excellent high school, became grandparents to the wondrous Caroline, and began, a few years back, to yearn for the seaside life once more.

All week I have been a mess of last-minute fussing, anxiety, regrets, excitement - the whole spectrum of emotions that comes with major change, even change one has chosen. I'll truly miss living here in this congenial part of the city, this college town. I'll miss the nice lady who owns the dry-cleaner two blocks from us, the fellow dog-walkers I chat with in the mornings, the local library just down the street, my favorite cashier at Stop & Shop. (Her name is Kathy, and she is a peach.) On the other hand, I don't want to sound too much like a native Rho Dislanduh, to whom a short distance like 15 miles - the extent of our relocation - might as well be a trip to the moon! And I'll be working here four days a week, so it's not as if I won't keep a bit of the East Sider in me.

Our phone service has already been cut off; the Internet and cable TV are next to go. We won't be back online until sometime next week. This part I actually look forward to: involuntary detox from the barrage of information, communication, and noise that pours into our home through various smart boxes these days.

It's been an amazing twenty years. Here comes the next chapter. Hasta la vista!