The afternoon we listed the house, the air felt heavier. The home we had built, the land we watched go from being field to holding the place where my kids would grow up, was now up for sale. I remember a tightness filling my chest as I stood in the living room, the late afternoon light spilling across the floor, trying to imagine strangers walking through the space that had held our entire lives. It didn’t feel real yet. Instead, it was a bit like a dream. Or a play. Pretend.

It’s true that we had talked about moving for months, almost a whole year, if I was to be honest. But talking was just that, talking, and nothing was a commitment. Not until that moment that the realtor walked out the front door, guaranteeing us the house was listed at a good price and he felt assured it would move fast.

Until that moment he walked out the door, I had watched him make notes on the house, talk about the HOA rates, the new wash machine and even newer hot water heater—both of which would go with the house—and it had felt like a dream, robotic and distant.

Reality had seeped in.

My gut told me it was the right move to make. The necessary step. It was the moment the ball began to roll toward a different life that held more promise than the one we had, or at least a different kind of promise. But there’s a strange ache that comes with preparing your home—the one you once knew was a forever home—for strangers. Even when you believe it’s the right move to make.

Because right doesn’t always mean easy or painless.

So when the realtor asked my husband if we were ready to go live and watched with trepidation and excitement and fear as he said yes.

Not long afterwards, our home—the one where we potty trained our youngest, both rode their bikes down the street with their friends, the one where we celebrated birthdays and Christmases, cried, laughed, and lived—was now on the market with photos where other people could scroll through pictures and decide whether or not our home fit into their lives.

Tears didn’t come that afternoon. In fact, nothing else changed, not right away. I made dinner, went for a walk with the dog and my oldest, took in the familiarity of a neighborhood. It was all routine in the hours and even in the immediate days that followed. We lived our life in the community that had been a dream come true for ten years and wondered.

Would the house sell?

What would it look like on the other side of this journey we had just begun?

If it sold, would we regret it?

If it didn’t, would we be disappointed?

This journey has been a lot of things—good and bad because every journey is exactly that—but listing the house wasn’t the beginning of the move.

It was the beginning of letting go.