There was a video circulating on Instagram of a thirty-something man packing boxes and looking around his childhood home as he gets ready to vacate. As he looks from room-to-room, he doesn’t see empty shelves and bare walls. He sees shadows of memories.

Family game night.

The beloved family golden retriever snuggling with the family on the couch.

Happy Christmas mornings.

Silly hi-jinx with siblings.

Pillow forts in the living room, army men battles, video game contests, piggy-back rides, and laughter. Always laughter. As he flips off the light, the video flashes to his father.

“Ready?” his father asks.

He slightly nods, but the answer was clear.

No.

No “child” with a happy childhood is ever ready to move out of his childhood home. I myself look around my living room as I write, and I see this:

The back room where we set up the ball pit when they were toddlers.

The dining room table where heated games of Monopoly, Clue, Jenga, Poker and Risk were played (and still are).

Their three stools at the kitchen island, where millions of talks took place. Talks about life, death, love, education, sports, disappointment and acceptance. I can’t even look at those stools without hearing their laughter echo through the house, at their simple joy of being together.

The corner of the hearth where our dog Mojo laid on the first day we brought him home. When he was full-grown he could barely fit even his head there, but he always tried and always seemed surprised that he wasn’t that little fluffy puppy anymore.

The ballustrades that they would hang from like they were Captain Sparrow.

The spot where they built pillow forts.

The wall in the kitchen that has pencil skritches and initials for height checks.

And the yard. Football catches, baseball catches, kickball games, miniature golf tournaments, Halloween displays, Manhunt wars, laid-back patio hangouts, summer cookouts with paper plates, sidewalk chalk, bike rides, light saber wars, plastic Fisher Price cars, drone experiments, surfboard waxing, and always, always, always, hordes of kids, even now.

I appeared as a guest on a New Jersey podcast last week, and we discussed how hard it is for older parents who have outgrown an area and want to move on, but our children still come home. We want to see the world, but we also want to keep the childhood home as a touchstone for our children, keep it as a place they can return to, again and again, to seek safe haven from the world, even for a brief respite. Another guest laughed while describing her joy at watching her “kids” return for holidays and immediately pull open the refrigerator door.

“Isn’t that silly?” she asked. “I love watching them bang through the front door and pull open the refrigerator. It’s such an intimate gesture, only something our kids do.”

We all agreed that the stuff our kids do kills us. The way they come home and flop down on the couch. How they love the smell of your candles, or what you’re cooking, or of your fresh coffee. The way they begin stalking around the room, making phone calls and plans with their friends. The sound of their music while they shower. My favorite?

When I’m downstairs working or cooking or listening to music, and the three of them are all upstairs, and I can hear them laughing at something that has nothing to do with me. They have always spoken their own “brother” language and have always had their secrets. Just hearing them mumble from their three rooms and crack each other up melts my heart like an ice cube in July.

So if we can’t or won’t sell, we compromise. Most of the time somewhere else, holidays here, travel in-between. And that is where I reside at this juncture in my life.

I ain’t selling my house.

So as I tie up the last few loose ends of my life here in Jersey, I join the ranks of many other older Americans who can enjoy the best of both worlds. That of the thrill of travel and independence, and that of the warmth and comfort of home. I leave these streets, these skies, these sidewalks to the young families who live all around me, who are busy raising their children in a lovely community. But ultimately, it’s time to move on.

And nothing could be better.