Empty Nest, New Address

Moving is widely considered one of life’s most stressful events. It’s physically demanding, requiring one to sort through possessions in order to decide what stays and what goes. Leaving a beloved home also takes an emotional toll. Then there’s the anxiety of adjusting to a new place.

Now consider how someone feels moving later in life, from the place they spent years raising their family. There are more possessions and a deeper emotional attachment to the place you’ve lived. How do you start over when you have such deep roots in the place you’ve lived for so many years?

Three women share the contours of their experience packing up and moving after their kids flew the nest.

We Just Left

Bracha grew up in Brooklyn and raised her family there. Then the children grew up, married, and left Brooklyn for Lakewood. After more than three decades of living in Brooklyn, Bracha left for Lakewood, too.

She says it wasn’t a big deal.

“I always knew I’d move someday,” she says. Her parents had done the same, selling their house in Brooklyn and moving to Lakewood. With the majority of her family settled there, it was only a matter of time before she left Brooklyn for Lakewood as well. She was just waiting for a push.

Then two things happened. First, their rav moved and their shul closed. They found another shul, but it just wasn’t the same. Then Bracha’s housekeeper of 32 years gave notice.