I had Giant Chewy SweetTarts yesterday. They taste like Summers in Upstate New York, tangy and sweet. They remind me of when Mimi would take me to the store and I’d get to choose any candy I wanted, even the fancy kind. I always chose Sweet Tarts. They taste like summer camp and grass under your feet and fresh air.

Mimi passed away the summer after I turned 13, and suddenly what it meant to be part of a Family changed for me. She was the second grandparent I had lost, but had been a family cornerstone. Her house smelled like fresh air and cinnamon and Irish Spring. Her hugs fit just right and there was always something delicious in her kitchen, waiting to fill your soul.

I think a big part of the Mid-20-something Emotional Growth we all do is the reconciliation of Family. You lose someone you love, Family changes. You face a parent’s mortality for the first time, Family changes. You leave for college, Family changes. Evolves. It means different things.

I go Upstate now and it’s not so much “going home” as it is “visiting my parents.” I don’t have a bedroom in that house anymore. They’re still my people, but it’s no longer my home.

And that’s OK. It doesn’t mean I love them any less, just that I’m growing into someone new.

This Someone New wants to find a new sense of Home, though. It’s unnerving, feeling uprooted and transient for such an extended period of time. Being in college is essentially reverting back to a nomadic lifestyle. Every four to eight months, your living quarters drastically changed. And now that we rent, even with new promotions and all the promise we show economically, it’s not always easy to make ends meet.

It is for all these reasons, and for the desire to get our life together started out on the right foot, that James and I have decided to swallow a bit of pride and move in with his parents for awhile– a year and a half, maybe two years.

The amount of money this will let us save is staggering, and if we don’t get our feet under us now, we’re going to be trapped renting forever. We don’t want to do that. We want to make good on the promises we whispered to one another about our kids being able to grow up with a treehouse and and a big yard. That’s more important to us than it is to live ten minutes from all the action.

Half of me rails against the idea of living with someone else’s family again. It’s been six years since I’ve had anyone else be The Woman of the House. Bit in the bigger picture, and the longer term, James and I know that we’ll happily relinquish a little responsibility again. Sometimes it feels like we forfeited being a young couple too soon. And we both know that we’ll search forever and still not find the appropriate words of thanks for his parents. They’re giving us our shot, our chance to start our life together off right.

His parents are giving, the most sincere and generous people I’ve ever met. We came home yesterday from his parents’ house with two cans of soup and enough hugs to fuel us through the week ahead. I didn’t realize his mother had slid the soup into the bag. She’s good like that. (She also cooked an entire Turkey dinner for us, and the resemblance to Thanksgiving was wholly appropriate.)

I had a taste yesterday of what it means to be part of a family again, what it means to have people who love you enough to take care of you. Who have the luxury of that proximity. It brought me back to when I was 12, eating Giant Chewy SweetTarts and running around barefoot with the grass and sand under me, taking for granted all the love and security of Family and Home.

James and I want to build together all those good things, to give to our kids. Eventually. The thing about Eventually is that it sneaks up on you.

And, really, there are no words to express how grateful I am that he and I are being allowed to get a head start on the future like this so soon.

-M.