As moving goes, be it houses, towns, Provinces, County’s and countries, I have done it all. 17 times to be precise. Yes you heard right. 17 moves in 17 years.
At one point I was going to make a scrapbook of all the homes I’ve lived in, as if it were something to be proud of, like some kind of accomplishment. It wasn’t. Well not for me in any case. Being a homebody who loves nothing more that to put down roots as quickly as possible and get entrenched into the community and routine, moving is somewhat counterproductive. Unless it’s a move in the area to a specific estate or house you had your eye on that would further entrench your life there and make even more convenient and comfortable. On the positive side, I can count having expert relocation skills and experience under my belt that’s for sure. (Note to self to update my LinkedIn profile with that!) I have learnt to execute the logistics pretty seamlessly. And for the most part, the majority of the moves were pretty much like the other, from one house, flat, duplex, semi-detached, cottage to the next.
Until now.
Leaving the home where Aiden was born was difficult. And now leaving the home I owned, where Ava-Jane was born, where Aiden spent most of his life and where I not only planted roots but an entire orchid in its fifth year of bearing fruit (It was also the longest I have ever stayed in the same house apart from Spence Rd, where we grew up – was there 20 years), you can imagine was devastating.
A place is a place. You can make new friends. A house is a house, they said.
But it’s not. It wasn’t.
For me, the place and the friends and family created this rock-solid foundation on which I not only built my home, my castle, my life, but my confidence, my happiness, my well-being, and controlled my anxiety. It felt like I knew everyone and everything. Everything had a place, and was in place, and there was a place for everyone and everything. I had tweaked and refined my life to the point that it hummed like a finely tuned engine. This removed an enormous amount of anxiety from my life; Kids are sick and need the Drs – sorted, my Dr was like a best buddy. Need a wax? Sorted, a bestie was on hand. Hospital? Sorted, been there so many times I know what who and where the best parking spot is. Kids dress up day at school? Sorted. Cake for a birthday? Sorted. Feel like hitting a class at the gym? Sorted, I could call on a number of besties to meet me there at a moment’s notice. I had it timed down to the second how long it would take me to stop at Dischem and the KwikSpar before fetching the kids. #sorted #organised #perfectrhythym
This move felt like an earthquake.
It was one of those moments that you have to wrap up carefully with bubble wrap, tape it over a few times and pack it up in a box to deal with later as dwelling on it would prove futile, just get in the way, and render me pretty useless.
That was the problem right there. I packed it away.
The actual move was well-planned and pretty perfectly executed. Schools sorted. House sorted. Removal truck booked. Boxes packed. Flights, car, doggie transport….. everything rolled out in military precision. Even the truck arrived exactly when I wanted it to. 9am sharp.
The labelled and numbered boxes, 48 of them to be precise, kept coming in. And they kept piling up until I felt like there was no more room to move. As I looked around I realised that the castle I had meticulously built was now reduced to bricks, stacked as high as the ceilings. My rock-solid foundation obliterated.
But me sobbing in the middle of Aiden’s room, surrounded by boxes and staring at a bed in pieces wasn’t going to help to get my castle rebuilt. I had to get everything in place and instil some semblance of routine for my babies. I would move mountains for them, or in this case move to the Mountain, to be able to do what I can give my little family the best life I can. I had to start somewhere and the beds seemed like the most logical.
I think the point of all this, for me was to admit that this was hard. That I miss my old home. I miss my old life and all the special people I left behind. I was so busy planning my new life, that I forgot to grieve over the old one. Because, for all intents and purposes, it is gone. I needed to say it out loud so that I can acknowledge it, give it its dues instead of packing it away and bury it somewhere, in order to focus on starting again, building my new life in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Yes, it will be hard.
Yes, it will take a lot of effort.
Yes, it is stressful.
But it is not insurmountable.
It will take time.
It will take patience.
It will mean being out of my comfort zone.
Move. Change. Adjust
We will rebuild.
As they say Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Meaning… “A complex task or great achievement takes time and effort and should not be rushed.”.
I would make one small adjustment to that phrase.
“Home wasn’t built in a day”
Bron
xxx
