I’m moving on after more than a decade 

When you stay in a situation too long, the years can blend and a stone, not rolling, can gather way too much moss. When it’s time to move, that moss can be shocking.

It comes in the form of a pack of hangers you never even opened, forgotten school handouts shoved in the back of the junk drawer, and maybe an unused birthday candle shaped like a 7 when your youngest kid will next be 9.

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I moved three years ago, but I didn’t really ‘move on.’ I moved from one address in Raritan Township to a new one, just not even 2 miles away, in Flemington, the smaller town that is surrounded by Raritan Township.

The circumstances weren’t good. There was personal pain and sacrifice. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but I had to do it. The moss all came with me rather than a typical purging, and sometimes that moss is in the form of personal baggage. Hell, I didn’t even need a moving truck. I could have walked it there.

So it wasn’t much of a move. I went to the same bank, same stores, no new streets to learn, etc. So it wasn’t really ‘moving on.’

This is where I'm moving to in New Jersey

Now I am, and I can’t believe I will have lived in this spot in Hunterdon County for over a decade. That’s a lot of gathered moss. What’s crazy is that for all the places I’ve lived in my home state of New Jersey, I’m going somewhere I know virtually nothing about.

I’ll be moving to Matawan. Never having lived in Monmouth County, it will be a true fish-out-of-water situation. I don’t know anything there. I don’t know the roads. I don’t know if there are any good dive bars. I don’t know what the people are like in that area. I don’t know what grocery store is closest or whether there’s a Target or a Walmart or both.

I’m…just going.

So this finally feels like both a move and a moving on. A clean slate. Hey, if you’re from Monmouth County and want to find me on Facebook or Instagram with a tip I’ll welcome you.

Leaving Hunterdon County behind after so many years, I’ll certainly miss having a 35-minute drive to work instead of the hour I’ll now face.

I’ll miss Ray at the QuickChek in Ringoes halfway there. I’ll miss marveling at how the abandoned eyesores like the Chute Shop on 202 North could still be sitting there in the same state of decay a decade later.

I’ll miss certain neighbors like Michele, whose mom skills impressed me daily, waiting for the school bus. I’ll miss the people, the annual Hunterdon Holiday Parade down Main Street, the fact that 65% of the homes here are historic, even (in a bitter way) the daily chaos that can be navigating the Flemington Circle.

But it’s time for a change. It’s time to move on. So I’d better get back to the packing and planning. I have a lot of moss to get rid of.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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