When you live in one place for 18 years, you tend to end up wishing you were somewhere else. You don’t often realize how blessed you are to live somewhere until you leave that place. So, what are you supposed to do when you move off to college and you parents are selling the house that you’ve lived in your whole life?

It’s time to clean out your room and you find things you never thought you would find. In one corner there’s your baby blanket that you secretly still cuddle with when you’re upset. In another, there’s a few old toys from when you were a child. Of course, while cleaning out your house you’ll probably find pictures of all the memories you made, but those are the only two things you’ll have left of your house – those pictures and your memories.

Looking around your room that’s gone through many transitions over the years because of your various phases in life, it finally starts to hit you. You’re an adult now. It’s time to move on with your life and make something of yourself. Maybe it’s becoming the doctor you pretended to be when you were little, or the cop you always acted as while playing cops and robbers. The bottom line is that it’s time to grow up and become the best you that you can possibly be, all on your own.

I think this is the moment where we can finally appreciate what our house, and even our town or city has given to us. We’ve dreamed of growing up and here we finally are, all grown up. We remember the times we ran around the neighborhood playing street hockey by day and flashlight tag by night. This is the place where you have made lifelong friends. When you were young you always dreamed of getting away from this place. You wanted a change, but now it’s all gone. The trees are coming down to build homes for more people moving into the area and as the leaves change colors in your town, you will be creating a life somewhere else, where you can watch the new trees change colors.

It’s important to remember that saying goodbye to your childhood home isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s okay to grow up, change and do something new with your life. Push yourself to accept change and to grow from change. Your home created a pathway for your current and future life. Be grateful for how it has shaped you, because if we never appreciate the little blessings in life, how can we begin to become the person we want and need to be?

Saying goodbye is the first step of growth. No matter how many tears you shed while saying goodbye, remember that your tears shouldn’t be sad tears. You shouldn’t be mourning the loss of your home, but rather celebrating the time you spent in that home and how it has become a part of who you are as a person.