I am starting this blog at the suggestion of my dear friend Julie who thought I should document this period in my life. Why? I am within two weeks of leaving a house where I have lived for 11 years and a community which I have called home for total of 24 years. I just turned 60 and I am moving out of state, to a place I’ve only visited a few times? Did I also mention that it’s not Hawaii or Carmel but another town in the Midwest, a colder, flatter part of the Midwest?

The last two months I have lived pretty much by myself as I downsized three generations of possessions, sorted through photographs, letters and books, thrown away my so-called professional portfolio and had the requisite garage sale with strangers pawing through my mother’s linens. What did Heraclitus say — that the only thing that endures is change?

My sister referred to our past as a “vagabond life.” Yes indeed it was. So both of us stayed put as much as we could once we became adults and yet now I am headed on. I am fortunate that this is a choice, not forced on me, and I don’t have a smidgen of self-pity about it. But will I be able to start over?

That is the question.