A familiar doorway becomes strange when someone else’s key opens it.

A place stops being yours the moment access changes hands. The doorway is unchanged, and you can still picture the hallway behind it, but the right to walk through belongs to somebody else now, which turns a familiar thing into scenery. That can feel surprisingly heavy even when the move was your own idea and a good one. Belonging is partly a question of who holds the key.

If you have left a place recently, let it feel odd for a while rather than deciding you should be past it. Write down the layout while you still remember it. Then let the new door begin collecting its own ordinary.