Sentimental Sunday: Looking Back 5 Years

Photo by Midge Frazel, 26 Aug 2010
modified 2015

Looking Back Five Years

Sometimes it is good to look back and examine your own past. On September 2, 2010, we moved from Bridgewater, Massachusetts to this new condo (freestanding home) from the house we bought on 11 December 1972 after living in three apartments. We lived in Bridgewater because the location fit in the requirement for hubs job area. Hubs first boss drew a circle on a printed map and that was the boundary area within which we had to live. So primitive a method of decision.

I didn't know I had an ancestor that lived in Bridgewater and is buried there. It was simply a move of geography. As native Rhode Islanders, we wanted to live as close as we could to make visiting our parents as painless as possible. In retrospect, it was still too far away.  Both of hubs brothers moved to the West Coast and to the Midwest leaving us with the job of being the local family. As an only child with a good job in Rhode Island, I was not happy to leave my home state. 

It was an easy choice to move away, five years ago, but not easy to decide what to bring and what to discard. We live less than ten minutes from our only child and her family. Our co-workers and friends (mostly) have moved away from where they lived five years ago. After all, they are retiring too. As we approach our senior years, I did not want the hardship of living away from our family again. It was time. I am glad we did it when we did.

Recently, I created a timeline of the process it took to decide, move and sell our old house. Timelines help make sense of places you have lived and why. As people become more mobile, I think future generations are going to regret not writing down places and reasons for moving. They will, however, have photos. 

So, as we celebrate our five year anniversary, here is a look at our condo as it stood when we were deciding which one to buy and a photo as it looks today. What will five more years bring?

Photo by Midge Frazel, 26 April 2010.

Photo by Midge Frazel, 30 August, 2015