Moving Stories


Wherein Our Heroine Tells One - But It May Not Be What You Think.
Over on Making Light and Electrolite, they are moving. Not the reasonably painless shuttling of electrons that would entail changing URLs - we're talking the real deal here: box up your stuff and change your address, lose the coffee maker, and find that CD you thought someone had borrowed and not returned two years ago.

Moving is one of life's big stress-inducers - up there with marriage, the death of a spouse, and childbirth. I have moved a lot in my adult life - approximately once a year from age 21 to 30. I sat still for three years or so, and then I moved four times in fourteen months. Or you might call it 3 times, depending on how picky you are about half-moves into temporary apartments.

Let me tell you: despite having done it so often, I truly hate moving. I have a friend who seems rather to like it - she gets settled into one place, lives there for a couple of years, and then her fingers itch for the rasp of cardboard boxes and the sticky adhesion of packing tape. I love this friend dearly. I also believe she is clinically insane. I can understand wanting to live in a different environment - wanting something that is more or less urban, a house or apartment that has more or less space, or even just wanting a change in climate. I cannot understand just wanting to move for the sake of it.

I know people who have moved a lot for their careers - for instance, friends who were in the foreign service and changed continents every few years. I have yet to find someone (other than my peripatetic friend) who actually want to move for its own sake, though. When John and I did our penultimate move into a temporary apartment about two years ago, we really tried to be organized. We attempted to think of every single thing we might need for those two months. We tried to keep things tidy and contained while we were in that temporary space. We tried not to broach boxes of things needlessly. What happened? We ended up buying our millionth steward's knife because we hadn't brought one of the 9,999,999 ones we had at our old home. We ended up sprawling and creating piles upon piles of our things, never quite wanting to put anything "away," because we just wouldn't be there that long. We ended up raiding boxes of things we were sure we would not need, but had brought because the movers wouldn't. For two people who like (generally) to be organized, it was hell. Getting Mac during that period was probably not the smartest move either, but heck - life was chaos, why not add a puppy? And the temporary apartment was just the beginning - painting, minor renovations, and the actual moving in to our new house were all ahead of us. We are still in mid-project with the downstairs hall primed but unpainted.

So yes, I am unemployed. And no, I'm not considering relocating. But thanks for asking.
Posted: Wednesday - June 30, 2004 at 07:40 AM         | |

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