Moving back into my parents house

Moving back home as an adult can be a strange situation, but it is especially weird to move into your parents’ house when they no longer live there. But, we’ll get to that. 

Let me share the whole story.

I was born in Northridge, California in the San Fernando Valley outside of Los Angeles. My dad worked for Lockheed out of Burbank. In 1991, that plant closed and my parents had to make a tough choice: move across the country so my Dad could work at the plant in Marietta, Georgia or stay in California and find a new job. 

I’m sure it was a tough decision. They had lived there for the majority of their lives, and most of our extended family lives in California. They chose to move us to Atlanta. I was five, going on six at the time. I was excited about the move. Looking back, I think I was too young to realize what was happening. My older brother took it much harder than I did. 

We moved over the summer to an apartment in Marietta and eventually bought a house in East Cobb. I had attended three different elementary schools by the time I was in second grade. Once my parents bought this home, we stayed put. 

My parents still own it to this day, but I did my fair share of moving in college and after I graduated.

In 2012, I was living in an apartment with my fiancé — now husband — in the same area. Our end goal was always to save up money to buy a house of our own, but with rent going up each year, we didn’t know how we were going to afford it. 

Then, came the opportunity of a lifetime. 

Later that year, my Dad got word that Lockheed was transferring him again. This time to Ft. Worth, Texas. The plan was for my parents to move for a few years, and then my Dad would take early retirement and move back to Georgia. They wanted someone to keep up their house, and we were thinking of renting a house as well. 

It was a win-win situation. 

My fiancé and I would move into my parents’ house while they were living in Texas. My parents wouldn’t have to deal with a house that sat empty. We got to live there and save money for a home of our own. We paid the utilities and a small “rent” and saved the rest to buy a house one day. 

Moving in

My parents left the majority of their furniture in the house. Sure, they took the main pieces: bedroom furniture, a couch, and the kitchen table, etc., but it was hard to fit our stuff and move into a house that was already furnished.

My brother got engaged a few months after I did, and my parents had planned that we would throw them an engagement party at our house — no wait, their house? My mom wanted to have her living room furniture in place for the party, so for months, we had to store our comfortable couch and recliner in the basement so that it would look like her house for the party. Then, we somehow fit sixty people in the house on a rainy, cold day in December. 

Months later, my fiancé and I hired some of his fraternity brothers to finally move our couches upstairs and theirs into the basement. It was so nice to get our familiar furniture back. 

When my parents would visit us while they lived in Texas, they would stay at our/their house and sleep in my old room which was now the guest room. We slept in their old room, and they slept in my old room — what a different situation! My parents were even out of town guests at my wedding held in Atlanta, which was strange.

It’s weird to say you live at your parents’ house like somehow you regressed. When it came up in conversation, I always explained to people that they didn’t live there too. 

It was strange to have been away for so long and then to move back to the family home. I’d walk from room to room, and many of my childhood memories would come flooding back. But I was thankful and couldn’t complain. We were saving for a house, and I never had to change the address on my driver’s license!

Three years later, my Dad got word that he could stay take early retirement in a few months. In the spring of 2016, my husband and I started looking for a house and found one right away. We ended up moving into our new home around Fourth of July, allowing time for us to pack up at our leisure. We visited my parents’ house and maintained it until they finally moved back for good in November of 2016. 

Now, we’ve made our new house a home. It’s been a long road to get here, but it has sure been worth it.