After the debacle that was trying to get all of our possessions into an itty-bitty trailer, you would have thought the moving drama was over. Oh no, far from it, as the excitement had just begun. You see, in order to avoid paying rent on an apartment we weren’t planning to live in, my wife and I had to move out on a Wednesday. Unfortunately, my dad wanted to wait until the weekend before we all took off to Maryland (and good luck telling him we can do it alone, there’s no way my parents were letting us move 10 hours away without saying goodbye), so in effect my wife and I were to be homeless for a few days. “Not to worry,” says mom and dad, “you can stay with us! It’ll be just like old times!” Oh joy, I get to live with my parents once more.

First off, obviously I wasn’t really moving back in with my parents since we were going to only be there a few days and since the only unpacking I did was clothes and a mattress (because we weren’t both making it onto my old bed; “twin mattress” is a misnomer, only one person’s fitting on there), but it still felt odd. After a couple years out on my own, coming home again was just so strange, like I was back in high school fielding all the same questions (“How was your day?” “Did you find a new job yet?” “Why can’t you be a lawyer?”) as I did all those years ago.

Conversations were awkward, as my family doesn’t really understand the concept of “new media.” In fact, I’m pretty sure the last time my mom checked her email was when I did it, and words like YouTube, RSS feed, and social networking make their eyes glaze over.

So I understand that they don’t see how I can possibly make a living writing on the Internet (privately; I’m not quite sure how to do it myself), so the pressure comes in spades to go get a more “conventional” job. When I tell them I want to be a writer their response is akin to that of John Lithgow’s character in “Orange County.” (If you haven’t seen it, go rent it right now, it’s like Laguna Beach and the Hills, but with a better script. Ah snap!)

Aside from dodging questions about my future, there was also the implied need for my wife and I to see every family member and attend every possible family event one last time, just in case the Eastern Seaboard breaks from the United States, floats into the Atlantic, and then sinks, thus rendering us never able to see any of them again. There was the family cookout featuring too done hot dogs and steaks so big I wondered what parts of the poor cow were left, as well as my niece’s softball games and random aunts and uncles dropping by to tell us how proud they were event though we’ve only met twice.

The night before we left my parents told us that if we ever needed a place to stay, their home was always open, “so long as she comes with you.” That little phrase was both the most wonderful and terrifying thing I had ever heard. On the one hand, it shows that they have fully embraced the love of my life as one of their own, thinking of her as their own child, and willing to do whatever it takes to help her every step of the way. On the other hand, it also means that if for some awful reason we should ever end up divorced, I’m no longer welcome in my childhood home. I worked on winning them over to my side for 18 years, it only took her two; she must be some sort of sorceress.

As I raided my parents’ pantry one last time I was struck by the sheer mass of the moment before me. Here I was, about to leave the only home I’d ever known (though I had lived in different parts of the same state, I was never more than a couple hours from where I grew up), to go to a place completely new and alien to me. I had been to Washington, DC once, in eighth grade on a field trip, and hadn’t seen it since. I had no knowledge of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, or Delaware (Delaware borders Maryland? Really? I thought it just kind of floated up and down the coast, settling wherever it chose), and my only lifeline would now reside a half-day’s drive away, well out of reach next time my car broke down or the washing machine overflowed.

And yet I knew the tether had to be cut. The opportunity laid before us was too grand, too perfect, to exciting to let slip by, and consequences be damned we had to go for it. So the next morning we piled into our cars and started driving east, every mile we passed I left another little piece of my old self behind; readying for a new day, a new home, and a new experience. However, tucked into the back of my mind was that little reassurance, the knowledge that I can always go home again if things don’t work out, so long as she comes with me.

I’d better be good, because if she leaves then I’m screwed.

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