Every 2-3 weeks from that point onwards (or at least those where I was in town) I would drive back towards Plainsboro. Either to visit friends, check up on the house, do some random moving of things in storage, and others, but there was always a need to some degree to visit Plainsboro again. Each trip would include a drive by the old house, and then a drive by the new house. Overtime, I guess enough new stuff was added to the new house that they started locking the front door - so I couldn't go in and soak it in. A few times I got lucky - once for some reason the window was open (of what was to become my bedroom), and once they left the front door unlocked for some reason. But generally, it was a bit pyrrhic of a moment.
That's all over - my parents moved in on February 5th (sadly a week where I had to travel to Germany for work - sadly....). I arrived for the first time on February 13th. It wasn't supposed to be that way. I had planned a trip to Southeast Asia for President's Day Weekend and the week after, like I've done in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025. But 2026 it wasn't meant to be, there were more important places to be, namely 3 Prall Drive.
I don't know quite what I was expecting that first time driving up the drive-way. I parked in the street I had so many times before when checking out the place voyeuristically, but when I walked up those steps, for the first time since the last moments in the old house I teared up. Still not sure why that was my reaction, but it weirdly was. This was a new chapter in my life (let alone my parent's life) whether I liked it or not, so I walked up those steps, rang the doorbell (didn't need to - the door was open) and walked in agape.
Full disclosure - the new house is quite nice. It's a couple hundred thousand dollars less than the old house, but is only about 300 square feet less (granted, that doesn't include the basement....). It is modern. It has a cavernously high 20 foot ceiling in the main area. Te kitchen is nicer. The house screams modernity in a way our old house was trying to but didn't quite do. We're very blessed, but still this was a moment.
What's hard to put into words is this is really the first time I stepped into a new house that was ours that I can remember. I guess my apartment in 2020 comes close, and truly that time I also teared up with joy with a giant smile on my face that I don't think I've still forgotten. But that was an apartment. This is a home. This was something different - a feeling of happiness for my parents, but also for me and my sister (who was there as well - she beat me there!).
There's some differences for sure. The bedrooms apart from the master are small, including mine which is the smallest of all them, significantly smaller than my bedroom in the old house. There's no basement for me to retire to at 11pm to watch random stuff and look at random old trip photos. Instead, there is the first room / office, where I jerry-rigged as similar a setup, but the thin walls force me to listen to the videos over bluetooth - not impossible, but just different. One would say this is a sign for me to stop this ridiculous ritualistic weekend practice, but I'm nothing but inventive.
But when it all hit home, no pun intended, was when I went to bed in my new bedroom, but my same bed - the bed I hadn't slept in in seven months, the one hiding in storage, when it really hit me. These seven months were rough because memories of comfort never go away. I had a home in Plainsboro - I have one now in Cranbury. Having the new one made me OK with losing the last one, because it isn't the physical structure, it is the memories, and the people and things central to those memories are still there (apart from maybe the Garden....).
My parents, thank the Lord, are still here. My sister is still here - plus added another to our little family unit with her husband. The family piano is still here. The family recliners are still here, if now in the loft vs. central casting in the great room. My bed is still here, and the bookshelf where i held such nonsense like random Sports Illustrated magazines and all the Harry Potter books. A kitchen where we can make memories over food is still there, if not fully improved. This crystallized the next day, Saturday, when I helped open a ton of boxes.
As depressing as packing up the old house was, the prospect of unpacking in the new house was helpful to keep us sane about the whole endeavor. Months later, the positive prospect of unpacking came through fully, as each box I helped rip open and unpacked became a chance to reminisce about the past, about these random objects that were worth saving and that I hadn't seen in seven months, hidden away in one of four storage units. It was a performative exercise to guffaw of each random surprise hidden in those boxes, but it was all too real as well.
At the end of all of it, I'm left ultimately happy about how this all went down. Packing up the old house was a ton of effort, was dramatic, was painful at times, but through it all there was this shining light of a new house, one that we visited the plot before there was a structure. I visited throughout its growth, from a concrete foundation, to the wood walls, to drywall, to a bit further. Through this all led to some incredible moments where I had to host my parents in my apartment in July and October, where we traveled the world (of South America) in December and January, and where every now and then we would go back to Plainsboro. Today we get to also go back to Plainsboro, to a new home with so many memories to come.
