Even though they have been talking about it for years, it's still a shock when you find out that your parents have officially put your childhood home up for sale. There is a for sale sign on the same lawn that all family milestones have been photographed (although the current tree is not the same as the one I grew up with. It was also planted crooked so it's growing sideways.)My parents will be moving to "Canada" as we joke. That means they are finally leaving the province of Quebec which likes to believe it's not actually part of the country it's in. Many things have kept my parents here over the years, the last of which were the taking care of my aging grandparents and then some health stuff. All of that is over now and my parents plan to spend their retirement in a part of the country that lets you speak English and doesn't have stupid politics around language and where signs can actually be written in English and no one gets fined for that. (Oh, yes they do in Quebec!)How do I feel about this?I'm not sure. The fact that my parents are still 5 minutes away from me is delaying the sinking in of the move. Once they are about 3 hours away I think I'll be a little more out of sorts. The sale sign only went up 5 days ago. They have already had some visits. We'll see what happens then.I found it very hard when we moved my grandparents out of their home and into the senior's apartment many years ago. I still have dreams about their house and it doesn't even look the same anymore because the people who bought the ancient thing added a second story and did a complete renovation. I almost don't recognize it when we drive by and that makes me sad.I lived 21 years of my life in the house that is currently for sale. My parents have lived there for 35+ years (37? 38?). I have both good and bad memories of the house mostly because I had a very emotional childhood and went through some pretty awful stuff while living there (not because of my parents, just life stuff that happened while I was living there).My room is now the one guest room, or my 4 1/2 year old niece's room. She gets very angry with me when I tell her that used to be my room growing up so I just stopped mentioning it. I used to love knowing that the room I was sleeping in at my grandparents' place used to be my Uncle Johnny's room, or my Aunt Katherine's room. I guess Lilly isn't like that. She's very possessive of my room, which makes it difficult for me because *I* am very possessive of MY room. When not housing stubborn children or guests (which was pretty much my grandparents while they were alive), my old room houses my parents' two cats. There is a cat tree and everything in there.Not having this house in our family anymore isn't what's going to bother me. I am happy to see the house go, even though it holds so many memories. I am a firm believer that you have to leave the nest once in a while to experience life. I moved out 13 years ago and I have lived in 5 different places in that entire time. With each new place you learn more about life and yourself and you just build on your experience and grow as a person.What I will miss are my parents. I admit it 100% that I am a mommy's girl. What will I do not having my parents 5 minutes away? Even when I moved out it was never more than 20-30 minutes with traffic between us. We were all in the same Montreal area so it wasn't a Big Deal.They won't even be in the same province anymore. This I have to come to terms with. Right now, it doesn't bother me one bit. Of course right now, they are still 5 minutes away. I can just pick up the phone at any time and call my mother. Soon they will be long distance and I don't have a LD plan on my cell phone and I am not about to spend an arm and a leg to get one. So we'll see. Maybe we'll get them a webcam for their parting gift and teach them to skype and I can have skype dates with my parents?I am looking forward to visiting them in this new place. I would like to see what it's like and it's sort of exciting to get to live somewhere that's English with no fear of the French. I only get to experience that when we go on vacation.I always thought I would be the one to leave the province before my parents, but it just goes to show you never know what can happen when.So my childhood home is up for sale and my parents are really going to be moving 3 hours away. It's weird. It's surreal. It's life.