TEAM LEAD and HEAD of STUFF

I help people transition into their next home using my Rightsizing Blueprint.

𝗜 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝟳 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗜𝗻 𝟳 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀

I grew up in a Navy family. My Dad was a Naval aviator who flew all kinds of fighter jets off of aircraft carriers. 

I grew up as a young kid in the late ’50s and early ’60s. So this was right in the prime time of the Cold War. 

So where it was normal for any military officer with a family to be assigned a tour of duty that lasted 3 years, the most we ever stayed in one place was 18 months. I went to a different school every year until 3rd grade.

When you’re brought up this way you don’t know anything different. This is just your normal. We had no idea that some families lived out their lives living in just one house as their home, sometimes without ever moving.

Here’s what my early life as a Navy Brat looked like: Jacksonville, FL - San Diego - Norfolk, VA - Washington, DC - Newport, RI, - London, UK - Washington, DC. All by the time I was 7 years old.

I don’t think we ever really, truly unpacked. I always wondered why some boxes never got opened. 

It wasn’t until we got back to DC that things changed. My Dad had 26 years of service and was not getting as many flight hours as he liked. A common issue as fighter pilots get older. So he decided it was time for a change. He retired from the Navy and got into the private business world.

After about 3 years there was an uneasiness starting around the house. A tension you could sense but not identify. Somehow we finally all figured out that it was because we weren’t getting ready to move again!

It’s when we figured it out that things started to get better.

We’d never been able to really put down roots anywhere. 

Where we lived going from place to place was a “house”. And as much as my Mom made heroic efforts, it was never the “home” that she always strived for it to be.

What became clear though was that Washington, DC had become the “comparison-other” place to be. In our moving around, anytime we weren’t in DC we’d find ourselves saying; “if we were only in DC we’d be doing… x, y, or z”.

Everyone had fond memories of DC. 

So with that acknowledged, our family made DC home. And even though I grew up here, and left for college and grad school, I too came back. 

Washington is home.