It has always amazed me how a song or a scent or a season – or anything, really – can make me pause for a moment and transport me back to another moment, another place, a memory frozen in time… as if there really weren’t any days, months or years in between the moments at all.

Right around this time two years ago I was back and forth between Rhode Island (home) and New York City (what was to become home) frequently. I was planning my move to the city, and between job interviews and apartment searching, I was making the 360-mile round-trip trek at least once a week for over a month.

Most times, my Mom accompanied me. She would drive me into the city – keeping herself occupied while I went in for an interview or come with me to look at apartments – and then we’d drive back to Rhode Island.

Mom and I have always been super close, but those late-summer trips back and forth between RI and NYC allowed us at least 7 hours of time together per trip to talk and share and laugh.

I loved home, and living close to my parents and my siblings and their families… and loved spending time with all of them… but this move would be for me… my chance to start fresh somewhere new after my divorce.

So while on those drives with Mom I was hoping that I’d soon secure a job and an apartment… I think deep down Mom was hoping I’d change my mind and decide not to move at all (perhaps thinking that new guy I’d been hanging around with, Brian, would make me reconsider).

I had met Brian a few weeks earlier, in early August, and by late September we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend; in fact, this was established on one of the RI-to-NYC-and-back trips that he joined in on.

But even though I knew my relationship with Brian was special, and that I was absolutely falling in love with him, I had made up my mind: I was moving to New York City.

So I continued to send out resumes and email people about potential apartments. Back and forth Mom and I continued, RI to NYC, NYC to RI.

And last week, when Mom and I found ourselves taking a late-summer day trip to NYC for the Vivienne Tam Yoga Fashion Show for Fashion Week, I had one of those moments that made me pause… and I remembered back to those 2009 late-summer day trips to NYC.

It was all so familiar… driving with Mom through Rhode Island and Connecticut, and into New York… driving over the Triboro Bridge onto the FDR… putting on my make-up and fixing my hair in the car visor mirror… feeling the excitement of entering the city.

It took me back to when the sights and sounds and scenery were so similar, back in 2009… when I received a sweet text from Brian wishing me luck on my interview.

And another moment in 2009, when I called Brian from NYC to tell him I had just been offered a job there… and hearing the disappointment in his voice in spite of him telling me he was so happy for me, and that he wanted me to experience living in NYC.

But in 2011, while the sights and sounds and scenery are similar, the details surrounding the moments are different… now, two years later, I texted Brian to let him know we had made it to the city, but I missed him already and couldn’t wait to get home to him that night.

Because 6 months after I had moved to NYC, away from home…

… I realized that home really is where the heart is… and my heart was (and is) with Brian.

So while love those moments that allow me to go to NYC to visit, and remember the moments that defined my move there in 2009…

I love the moments spent at home even more.