Notes from my Move

Moving is up there with one of life’s biggest stressors outside of death and divorce.

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In early July, my husband and I found out that our landlord was selling our current apartment so we set out to look for a new place.  After some trial and error with some very unprofessional real estate agents, (I have no idea how some people are able to stay in business!), we found a new place we were set to move in on July 1st.

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We packed everything up and labeled every box within an inch of our lives and were ready to go. On the Wednesday prior to the move we got a call that the landlord was M.I.A and we would be unable to move in on July 1st.

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Very long story short, after a month of living out of boxes, not knowing where we were going to live next, accepting we might be at a loss of thousands of dollars, our broker finally located him and we moved in without incident at the end of July.

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All things considered, we were incredibly fortunate that our previous landlord allowed us to go week to week on our lease and we weren’t homeless or living with our parents with all of our stuff in storage.

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Living out of boxes for a month was quite annoying, humbling and helped me learn a lot. Here are some of my findings:

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Moving is Unsettling

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It’s incredibly unsettling to not have all of your items at your fingertips and not know exactly where everything is.  At the risk of sounding obnoxious, the feeling of chaos that was created living among boxes and not knowing where any of our stuff was made me realize, is this how everyone feels all the time!? I knew that I loved being organized but it really did reiterate and reinforce that it’s so uprooting & disruptive to not know where all your stuff is.

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Routines are Key

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Your physical surroundings affect your routine and mental health.  My husband and I have created cleaning, cooking & shopping routines that help us run our house efficiently. After removing all of the decorations on the wall and packing up everything into boxes, our nicely curated home suddenly felt very barren and weird. Being surrounded by boxes and nothing on the walls was strange and unsettling.

It definitely affected my moods and I realize that having routines and an organized and clean environment help me maintain my work and personal life & goals.

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Storage Wars

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It’s not my proudest moment but I have to admit that when past clients have called me super duper last minute to help them on a move where the details are constantly changing I have thought, why didn’t they plan ahead better or had the foresight to not have the new apartment aligned with when they’re moving out? Going through this process has given me more empathy for how chaotic and unsettling a move can be even with the best laid plans.

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At the end of the day, moving is an anxiety provoking process so, give yourself some grace and patience through an event that even professionals (ME!) find stressful.

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