The Back-to-School Scaries Have Me Thinking About More Than School

I’m starting to get the back-to-school scaries.

I love summer and always hate to see it go. Partly because of the weather, of course, but mostly because every new school year means my kids are another grade older and one step closer to leaving the nest.

And with empty nesting starting to feel less like some far-off stage of life, I’ve found myself thinking more and more about one question:

What’s next?

Even with older kids who are constantly in and out, our home is still the center of our family life. There are conversations in the kitchen, shoes and bags everywhere, schedules to keep track of and someone always needing something, usually revolving around food.

There’s a vibrancy to life here that I love, but lately I can’t help wondering what life will feel like when that changes.

Which is probably why I’m also starting to wonder if, sometime in the not-so-distant future, it might be time for us to change things up too.

Don’t get me wrong. The idea of my kids coming home from college to their childhood home pulls at me. The thought of leaving a home we love scares me. And, like so many people, we’re comfortably locked into those golden-rate handcuffs.

There are plenty of logical reasons to stay exactly where we are.

And yet, I’m curious about what could make the next chapter feel exciting and inspiring in a whole new way.

Maybe it’s a beach house. A condo in downtown Newburyport where I can walk out for coffee in the morning. A house with a pool. Or maybe it’s more land, a big garden and an entirely different way of spending my days. Although, judging by the way I barely kept my basil alive this year, I don’t think it’s this.

I really don’t know.

And maybe that’s the point.

We tend to think that before considering a move, we need to know exactly what we want: the town, the house, the price range, the number of bedrooms.

But a better place to start is often: How do I want my life to feel?

Because changing where you live can change far more than your address. It changes what you do on a Saturday morning, what you see when you look out the window, where you walk, who you meet, and what you make time for.

I know this because when we moved to Newburyport fifteen years ago, we only moved about 20 minutes north. It wasn’t far from the life we already knew, but it opened up an entirely new world of friends, community, experiences and inspiration we never could have predicted. The change was scary, but it was also really, really good.

So maybe you’re feeling a shift too. Maybe your kids are getting older, you're already an empty nester, or you've simply started wondering whether the home that made perfect sense five or ten years ago still fits the life you want now.

You don’t need to start by putting a For Sale sign in the yard.

You can just get curious.

Do you want to be the house everyone gathers at, or are you ready for something easier to lock up and leave? If school districts were no longer part of the equation, where would you choose to live? Are there things you’ve always wanted in a home that weren’t practical while raising kids? And maybe the biggest question: do you want your next home to support the life you already have, or help create a slightly different one?

Sometimes the things that matter most in your next home aren't the things you'd put into a real estate search.

And if you ever want to take that curiosity one step further, this is one of my favorite kinds of real estate conversations to have.

Especially because, right now, I’m having it too. :)