Elizabeth moved back to Indiana a whole month before I did. Her job started in November 2020. We had “80%” of the packing done, we were towing part of what we had packed to Indiana, and that same week, we had our realtor showing the house.

Yes, Elizabeth quit her job in South Carolina and started in Indiana before we had a buyer for our home in South Carolina. This was risky. But not too risky: we had three offers on the house after the first day it was on the market. Relieved because I thought the hard part was behind me, I drove back to South Carolina to finish packing.

Little did I know. Moving down the street is easy. Or two hours away. But we were moving 9 hours away. We had spent the better part of seven years accumulating furniture, decorations, kitchen, and home improvement. 

I spent my days remotely working and my nights packing. I don’t know how many boxes I packed, but it felt like hundreds. Did I mention all of the furniture? So much furniture. Why did we own all of this? Two people and four bedrooms were so much overkill. Ultimately, we gave away over half of our furniture to families that would get more life out of them.

Amazing friends came over, risking the pandemic by helping with boxing and furniture moving.  Not only was I packing to move several hundred miles northeast, but I was also packing for an undetermined amount of time. 

We were indefinitely moving in with my in-laws. We had temporary housing but nothing for storage. So I meticulously picked boxes I thought we might need in less than a year. Everything else was donated or set aside for our packing cube.

And just as fast as it started, it was already over. Our time in Greenville felt like a short dream where you live a whole lifetime of memories, and you wake up at your in-laws, not quite sure what to do next.

In just a few short months, I also would change jobs, and we would begin an entire year of “should we build or buy” and similar quests. Much was in store, but our home has never been about geographic location. We leave part of our home in Greenville, SC, where many of our closest friends live. We return to our home in Indiana, where our family lives. I’ll leave it for now in the immortal words of Ballard MacDonald (1917) about Indiana. Not surprisingly, Sugarcreek, for which we have named our field, feeds into the mighty Wabash river.

“Back home again in Indiana / And it seems that I can see
The gleaming candlelight / Still burning bright
Through the sycamores for me / The new-mown hay sends all its fragrance / Through the fields I used to roam
When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash
How I long for my Indiana home”