Twenty Years in Seattle

Twenty years ago this month Denny and I moved our family from a home in Houston to a new home in Seattle. We started out on an exciting new journey. Twenty years have passed. Amazing.

In 1991, Chris was five and Laura just three years old. The kids were excited about the move to a new city but sad to leave their grandparents (both sets), cousins, extended family and their beloved nanny. The same sense of ambivalence about leaving family to move thoursands of miles to a place neither one of us knew much about affected Denny and me. We had exciting new jobs ahead and a beautiful new city to explore but still we wondered: Would we be happy in the northwest? Would we ever be able to call Seattle home?

We're still living at the same address two decades later. Once the new folks on the block, now we're the old timers. Our house proved to be a good choice in a great location. For years the sounds of  young voices filled every room but now the spaces seem large, spacious and way too quiet; the proverbial empty nest. How did that happen?

Our house looks much the same as it did on that September day in 1991 when the moving van pulled up with all of our belongings.  Sure, we've renovated the main floor a bit and there's a new exterior paint job, new roof and a redesigned deck out back but the bones of the house remain intact. We've planted new trees at the back and front of the house and in the space of those years, the former hedges and bushes have doubled and in some cases tripled in size.  Time marches on.

The view from our bedroom window changed over the years as homes across the street were leveled and rebuilt and others had their roofs lifted, creating second stories with views of Puget Sound. What once was a decent expanse of water seen from our upper deck is now mostly a view of our neighbor's homes. Sigh.

How many more years will we call this dwellling our home?  Probably not another twenty years. Without those young voices, the house feels different; not bad....just different.