Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

I was five and a half in August 1987 when I first moved to Washington State. We lived with my aunt and uncle in Woodinville for the first few weeks. My older sister, Beth, and I spent the days with our grandmother, Cecil, baking cookies, watching the hot air balloons fly over the house, and get into our cousin Brian's stuff while he was off at college. My parents and the two younger kids (we were only four then) spent their days crossing the Puget Sound to house hunt in Kitsap County.

On September 20th we moved into our new place in Silverdale, and on the 21st the kid count increased to five. I remember sitting on chairs, eating breakfast out of a bowl on my lap because most of our furniture, including our table, hadn't arrived yet. So, that period was the beginning of my time as a Washington resident.

It was 17 years later when I first began working for the Tacoma Field Office, in September 2005. Hurricane Katrina had just happened. I have a vivid memory of that because I spent exactly one week on the job before taking leave to have a four day weekend visiting Los Angeles, and the pictures were on the front of all the newspapers...at the airport, on street corners, in the hands of the people on buses. (Don't take public transportation in Los Angeles)

Five years after that saw me, now married, move to Lacey, WA for the first time. Up to that point I had either lived in Seattle, while at UW, or at various homes in Kitsap County. The city was always no more than a ferry ride away, not through the traffic horrors of JBLM, the Tacoma Dome and the Fife curves, the Highway 18 junction, the I-405 junction...well, the whole way north could stink. So, we started making a home down there.

Just one year later, and Cassandra and I were moving into our first "our home". I really liked it a lot, but from the beginning we referred to what we wanted out of a home in the future by saying "when we move to our forever house." We knew it was temporary, but after four years of owning a place, it definitely becomes yours, regardless of your timeline. I learned the rhythms of caring for a yard in the Northwest (yes, the moss killer fertilizer is key in the spring), we saw some plants grow monstrously, and others, like our cedar tree, fail in our clay. The inside got more dinged and marked as we added children into the mix, but also had a lot more character with all the pictures on the walls. The street changed, as the military owners got their transfer orders and rented out their places to tenants. It became a place where all people, not just us, were clearly planning on being there for just a short while.

I'm extremely excited to be in the Portland area. Closer to family. Easier trip into "the city" (no, not San Francisco) for arts and sporting events, more and better options for children's activities like the Oregon Zoo and OMSI, closer to family. It's an area I've gotten to know well over the last 10 years as Cassandra and I must have made the trip at least once every two or three months, year after year. I'm really excited about the area we're in. It has a lot of convenient shopping, grocery stores, restaurants. Lots of little parks for Claire to try out, and eventually Elanor. In short, it already feels like home, and I know that it feels that way so quickly both because it was already half a home anyway and because I've moved so much in the last 15 years that I've sort of gotten used to it.

But still. I had been a resident of Washington for just over 26 years. Everything in my life that I can remember that came before that is just pictures, snapshots in my mind of events. Some homes I can't even remember, or if I have memories of them I'm not sure if they're my memories or memories of actual photos I have seen.  Despite being a military kid for the first five and a half years, Washington was where I told people I was from, no hesitation.

After the moving van carted off all the stuff it was about 8 pm on the 5th of October. All the lights were on in the house, and I was going through room by room, taking pictures of how different the place looked and making sure nothing was left behind. Inspiration struck, and being the child of the 90s that I am I had to cheesily end my time as a Washington resident with everyone's favorite one hit wonder, Semisonic's "Closing Time". It was one of those moments where you picture your life as a movie scene. Starting in the library/guest room I slowly walked through the house, turning off the lights, knowing I couldn't stay there.

And now my new beginning. I'm an Oregon resident, with an Oregon license. And all my Washington beginnings have ended.

Thanks for reading.