Moving

When your whole life is in a new place, you need familiar tasks and belongings to help calm the chaos.

It’s 7:00 a.m. Do you know where your toothbrush is? If you do and you can also find your phone charger, put your hands on a clean towel and have all you need to make a cup of coffee, be grateful.

During my first year of marriage, we moved four times. Moving wasn’t a hardship at that time. Our primary housekeeping belongings were a radio and a coffee pot. We did have a few extras such as bedding, table cloths and pictures for the walls. And we had all those lovely wedding shower gifts. We just stowed everything in the back seat and trunk of the car and towed a piled-up trailer. The only stressful event on that first move was discovering that my pillow never survived the trip.

After the Korean “police action” ended and my soldier husband came home, we settled down in one place for 28 years. Let me assure you that the next move took years off my life. That relocation was hard on my fingernails and made me pop Advil like jelly beans. I even considered sitting on the curb by the garbage cans swilling Jack Daniel. But there was no time for that.

The physical aspect of a move - the packing, loading, unloading and unpacking, is hard. But the hardest part is mental – making tough choices regarding what to discard, what to keep and how to move it is almost too much. Then there are the thousands of small interconnected decisions in short order about where to put everything.

That move was eye-opening and educational. I learned to live more efficiently. I carefully considered each of our acts of daily living and streamlined them. Now the hair brushes and combs were with the hair appliances. The can opener was with the canned goods. Toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss were together in the same, narrow drawer. All you have to do is think about what you do, when, where and with what and pull it all together.

Twenty-five years later when faced with the empty-nest syndrome and an urgent need for down-sizing, I was ready. In touching distance at all times was my clip board of lists, room dimensions, paint swatches and moving company phone numbers. It was a piece of cake!

Living well is a lot less about where we live and far more about how we live.