We are moving away. Bob accepted a job in Durham, North Carolina, at Alta Planning + Design. If you know Bob, you know this is a dream job for him, and he will certainly appreciate your congratulations!

Moving is a big deal, at any distance, and it’s especially momentous for us because we’ll be moving away from the town Bob was born and raised in, away from the house we completely rebuilt, and away from the place our children came home.

We are excited for the changes ahead, the challenges we’ll face, and the freedom from complacency that any major upheaval predicates. We’re especially excited for mild winters and I’ve been told that sweet tea lies in our future.

Saying goodbye Olean won’t be terribly difficult, as we’ll be back to visit our parents, so it’s more of a “see you later” – but that doesn’t make it easy. We have close friends here and nearby who we will miss wholeheartedly. The distance won’t diminish these friendships, but it will still be sad.

We’ll miss our family here, our parents, Bob’s grandmother Stella, his sister Jen and her family, and getting together for occasions big and small because we could.

We’ll miss the idiosyncrasies in Olean – the two story shop and tattoo parlor called “The Underground” (patently not under the ground); the combination wig and realty place (which, admittedly, did eventually became two separate shops but in my heart they are forever combined); even the frustration with the local sandwich place that advertises it is open until 9, but you can’t order anything after 7:30 because they shut everything down then.

We have put a lot of ourselves into our community – Bob coached cross country at St. Bonaventure and is active in the local running scene; I worked with Canticle Farm as a board member and chair of their marketing committee and with the Challenger Learning Center and did some work on the revitalization of my old high school. Lately, we’ve drifted further from these activities, as we’ve prioritized spending time with our children and being actively engaged with them (while they’ll still accept that sort of nonsense).

This move is a leap into the unknown and it’s thrilling and mysterious. We will move into our new place in less than a month, so we are incredibly busy getting our house in tip-top shape, and getting packed up. We haven’t had time to let it sink in. But maybe while we loll by the pool at our complex, soaking in the warmth and the laughter of our children, when we cycle on the American Tobacco Trail on our way to one of Durham’s many parks, when we explore the beaches and mountains of North Carolina, when we enjoy the company of both our sisters who live conveniently nearby – maybe then it will sink in, and we’ll turn to each other and say, “my god. We are the luckiest who have ever lived.”