Last weekend my family said a last goodbye to the home my mom grew up in.

Even looking at the photos as I’m writing this feels odd and emotional and hard. I don’t think of myself as someone who is particularly attached to physical locations or spaces, but I believe in the energy you experience when you walk into a room or familiar place. And I think I’m realizing I will never walk into this place again, and that feels wrong. Or premature. And I thought I had become so good at closure.

It was very weird to be in this (un)familiar place and I would use words like melancholic or nostalgic or bittersweet but none of them feels heavy enough.

We cried and laughed and told stories. We felt the soft white carpet between our toes for the last time. We rubbed the textured wallpaper one last time. We walked around the house and remembered a lot of things together.

It was sad to remember. It was sad to leave.

And then we went to the beach, because being in or near the water heals a lot of things I guess.

We cried and laughed and told stories there too. We felt the soft sand between our toes again. We touched the water and let it hold us again. We remembered a lot of things together.

But we weren’t saying goodbye to the beach.

We saw a snapping turtle at the house before we left, and I had never seen one there before. Later that day Hayl looked up the symbolism associated with specifically snapping turtles and we were all a little blown away. Lots of association with moving on and making home in a new place or being resilient and decisive. I suppose this comes with the territory when you’re biologically wired to carry your home with you on your back all the time.

I recently read The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho and loved his language about noticing and following omens when they appear. I certainly think that snapping turtle was an omen, regardless of how spiritual you want to make it.

Sea turtles always know how to find their way home. And despite the fact that we were at a lake and not an ocean, the water will always remind me of my oneness with all things. That is what feels like home, and that is a feeling I can wear like a turtle wears its shell.