Six Million Views, One Empty House, and a Summer We Didn’t See Coming

Leaving our family home, accidentally going viral, and discovering that maybe we’re all a little more connected than we think.

At approximately 11 p.m. on the night we moved out of our home of nearly 20 years, I posted a video to Instagram.

I was exhausted. Physically, emotionally, all of it. We’d just finished moving out of the house where we’d raised our three kids, celebrated countless birthdays and holidays (shout out to Thanksgivings, IYKYK), welcomed friends and family, and lived so much life.

I was feeling at least 47 different emotions, none of which I could adequately explain.

Earlier, Mike stood in our empty hallway and called out for our kids. “Logan! Riley! Finn!”

Of course, nobody answered.

“They’re not here. Let’s go somewhere else.”

I captured it on video, and that night, sitting with everything I was feeling, I decided to share it. But I almost didn’t.

I didn’t spend time tweaking the perfect caption and hashtags. I didn’t consider whether it was a good time to post or whether it would perform well. I just wrote what I was feeling and hit that little arrow icon.

I think I needed to put some of that emotion somewhere.

At the moment, I felt untethered and unsure. And, strangely, also tethered and sure. We were doing exactly what we wanted to do, moving toward a life we’d dreamed about. But that didn’t make leaving the life we loved any easier. Saying goodbye to our family home was hard, even though we are excited about what comes next. Sometimes the right decision doesn’t feel good.

Anyway, then I went to bed. And the internet had other plans.

Six million views. Seriously?

As of this morning, that little video has been viewed more than 6 million times.

Six. Million.

I have absolutely no frame of reference for that number. More than 3,600 people have commented, and I’ve read and responded to almost every single one. Not because I have some sophisticated social media engagement strategy. (Although I suppose I should pretend I do, given that I’m now trying to build a little business around all of this.)

I responded to the comments because people were sharing pieces of their lives with us, and I wanted them to know someone was listening.

People told us about the homes where they raised their families. About kids who had grown up and moved away. About selling houses they never imagined leaving. About parents they missed, childhood bedrooms, and memories they hadn’t thought about in years.

Some were in exactly the same season of life. Others were decades removed from it. Some were still living in the houses where their kids were little, already dreading the day those rooms would be empty. Some were kids finally understanding the perspective of their parents.

f all the comments, a few have stayed with me. These are two of them.

“I thank all my homes the moment I’m done and ready to hand over the keys. Each one has held different versions of us, seen the hardships and the joys, the ups and downs of each of us. A safe place to land and the keeper of a family. I stand in the doorway that thank it for all’s it been and for letting us go onto a different chapter.”

“This is what my parents are going through and it would absolutely break my mom to do this but somehow I felt like I needed to see something like this so thank you.”

I wish I could share all 3,600. Reading them has been one of the most unexpectedly meaningful parts of this entire experience.

And plenty of people just thought Mike’s facial expressions or the dogs underfoot were hilarious.

Apparently, our electrical outlets were also a big deal.

Don’t get the wrong idea, not all 3,600 comments were heartfelt reflections on family and the passage of time.  I need to tell you about the outlets.

The electrical outlets.

Apparently, having horizontal outlets is unusual. Who knew?

Not me. Every outlet above the baseboards in our old house were horizontal, and I can confidently say I spent approximately zero minutes of my life thinking about that fact until thousands of strangers started watching our hallway.

Some people were fascinated. Others were confused. There were opinions.

We shared a tender moment about our children growing up and leaving home, and a surprising number of people wanted to discuss electrical installation.

There were also plenty of funny comments about Mike, our empty house, and the general absurdity of the whole thing. It was a wonderful reminder that people can be sentimental and ridiculous at the same time. Laughter through tears is one of my favorite things. It’s so….human.

What surprised me most wasn’t the number.

I’ve thought a lot about why that video resonated with so many people.

It wasn’t beautiful footage. There was no impressive editing. No strategy. It was a middle-aged couple standing in an empty house, doing something we treasured, in a place we loved just one final time.

And somehow, millions of people understood exactly how we felt.

We are all connected.

That’s what I keep coming back to. We live in a world that can feel awfully chaotic and divided. Turn on the news or spend ten minutes scrolling social media and it’s easy to come away feeling like people have very little in common.

But then something like this happens. People from all over the world recognize themselves in a simple family moment. They tell you about their kids, their parents, their memories, their losses, and their hopes for whatever comes next. They offer encouragement to complete strangers. They make jokes. They are kind. And suddenly the world feels a little smaller, in the very best way.

I don’t want to overstate the significance of a viral video. It’s still social media, after all. The same place where people also have very strong feelings about electrical outlets.

But I also don’t want to dismiss what it means to me. At a time when I was feeling particularly uncertain, thousands of people reminded me that the things that matter most to us are often the very things we share.

Home. Family. Love. Change. Missing what was while looking forward to what’s next. Pretty basic human stuff. And it feels really, really good.

Moving Out After 20 Years: Meanwhile, back in our actual lives…

While all of this was happening, we were busy living through what I can only describe as a very interesting summer. We sold our home in Illinois, packed up nearly two decades of belongings, and moved to Wisconsin to live with family while Five Trails was being built.

If you’ve never moved out of your own home in your 50s and into your parents’ house while simultaneously building a custom home, I can report that it’s an experience. We’re incredibly fortunate to have family willing to welcome us, two dogs and all. And living at the lake has given us some wonderful moments we wouldn’t otherwise have had.

But like most of us who have lived on our own for decades, we’re also accustomed to having our own space, our own routines, and our own kitchen.

I miss my kitchen and my yard and my closet. A lot. I miss having an office separate from my bedroom the most.

In the meantime, we’ve watched Five Trails go from a piece of wooded land we loved to an actual house. We’ve made approximately 10,000 decisions, with another 10,000 waiting for us.

We’ve chosen windows, stone, cabinets, appliances, and lighting. We’ve debated fireplaces, hallway widths, and whether crown molding belongs in a house with exposed beams. We’ve learned that building a custom home involves an astonishing number of conversations about things you’ve never previously considered.

And when you separate this project from the regular life stuff, we are loving this experience, 10,000 decisions and all.

So, what exactly is Five Trails?

When we started sharing this project, I thought we’d be documenting the process of building our home. I love design and I’ve grown to love it even more through this process. I love finding interesting materials, mixing old and new, and creating spaces that feel collected rather than decorated. I’m the person who can happily spend an entire afternoon looking at natural stone slabs.

Mike is the person who occasionally reminds me that we do, in fact, have a budget.

We’re also both still working full-time in careers we love, which means most of this adventure happens during evenings, weekends, and whatever spare minutes we can find. It’s a lot, but it’s also been a wonderful creative outlet.

And given some of the choices we’re making for this house, I suspect we’ll both need to keep working until we’re approximately 94.

At least we’ll have a beautiful place to collapse at the end of our workdays.

We bought five-plus acres of wooded land in Wisconsin because we wanted space, nature, quiet, and a place where family and friends would always feel welcome. We’re building a home for the life we have now and the years ahead. A place where our grown kids can come home, where friends can gather, where the dogs can run, and where we can enjoy a slower, quieter life.

But I’ve realized over the past few months that Five Trails is about more than the house. It’s also about this time of life. About being old enough to know how quickly twenty years can pass, and young enough to be excited about what the next twenty might hold. About loving the life you’ve had without needing to recreate it. About discovering new interests, taking a few chances, and occasionally doing something that makes you wonder whether you’ve lost your mind.

Like starting a new blog and social media accounts in your fifties. Or building a custom home. Or posting a video at 11 p.m. that six million people end up watching.

One last thing.

I don’t know exactly what Five Trails will become.

I hope it will be a place to share our home-building experience, the things we’re learning, the choices we’re making, and the talented businesses and craftspeople helping us bring it all together.

I hope there will be beautiful rooms, good food, hot coffee, plenty of laughter, the occasional Aperol spritz, and some honest conversations about life along the way.

And I hope the people who found us because of a heartwarming and heartbreaking moment in an empty hallway will stick around to see what happens next.

Because one of the nicest surprises of this entire experience has been discovering just how much we have in common with people we’ve never met.

Six million views is an extraordinary number.

But it’s the people behind those views I’ll remember. And to everyone who took a minute to tell us a story, share a memory, make us laugh, or wish us well: thank you. You made a difficult goodbye feel a whole lot less lonely.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a house to finish building.

And I need to decide whether the electrical outlets should be horizontal.

Breaking Ground on Our Intentional Custom Home Build at Five TrailsWhat You’ll Find at Five Trails