Making the move ✈️

Freedom & Independence

Home... something some people never have.

Home... a shelter from the outside world.

Home... a place where people gather.

Home... where families begin and memories are made.

The home photographed here is where everything started for me. Other than my childhood home, this was the longest place I have ever lived. Six years of memories, both good and bad.

September 22, 2015, this became my first home.

When I moved in, I was moving from a house I rented on the other side of town. The friends I had made that spring said they were coming to help. Little did I know the entire group of them was coming. In one hour, we emptied one house and filled the other. I hardly touched a thing. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. After, we toasted to my new adventure with pizza and beer.

The following year, a close friend and I said F-U to 2016 after both experiencing tragic losses. It was a shit-show of a year and we were totally over it. As the clock struck midnight, we made our way to the deck and lit all the sparklers we had. We screamed as loud as we could and before we knew it, it was 2017. Out with the bad memories, in with the new.

Football Sundays, spaghetti suppers, team breakfasts, and so much more. While I never started my own family in this home, I gained one. The friends I made while living there became my family. A family I once was scared of moving away from. Until I did. When I finally did move away, I realized that it didn't matter where I was. I could move out of the country and I still had a family to come home to. When I returned to visit, it was as if no time had passed.

A home doesn't need to be made with a partner, your children or even other blood relatives. A home can be made by yourself and expanded with the family you choose to have. Even ones that started out as strangers.

This cute blue home on Skylark Terrace is the home that made me. This was where I grew stronger and became the woman I am today. It will be the home that I drive by with my future family and point out where Momma once lived. This will always be a place I call home, even when it is no longer mine. The reality is, I don't need the physical structure there to call it home. My friends, who are now family, are there and they are my home.

For any of my Hookers reading this... thanking you for letting me into this crazy family six years ago. I don't know where I'd be without you...

Where am I off to next? Well... that is up to me, and only me.

I'll be honest, I am pretty damn excited about it!

Where would you move to if given the choice?

Let your sun shine ☀️

xoxo Kody