We’ve bought a new house. It’s hard to believe we’re moving again, harder to believe we are packing again. This will be my 13th move (not including back and forth from college) since I was 21.
Years ago I had a friend with the same name as a local politician. After seeing his name on a yard sign, I asked him if he was running for something. “No,” he said, “but I am running from some things.”
It might seem like we, too, are running from some things. After all, our last move was just three years ago. And prior to that, we were only in a house for five years. But prior to that, we lived on a farm for 20 years. Twenty years of acquiring furniture and art, tending animals and gardens, revisioning and renovating the house, walking our street, watching our patch of sky, learning to work from home, making neighborhood friends – all in the name of rootedness, stability, homemaking. For 19 years and some months, we gave nary a thought to moving. How quaint that seems now.
The rules of moving have changed over the years. In my 20s, all I had to do was throw my worthless belongings into a few boxes, harness the dogs and drive to the new place. If I left behind a constellation of nail holes in the Sheetrock or coffee stains on the rug, it hardly mattered. These were houses even the landlords didn’t care enough to keep up, as evidenced by linoleum curling up from the subflooring, windows that either would not open or opened but would not lock, and ancient, disappointing plumbing. Moving from house to house was like gambling: I never knew if what I was getting into would be an improvement over what I’d escaped, but I bet on it not being worse.
Now we own the houses we’re selling, and buying the ones we’re moving to. Now our belongings aren’t worthless, and packing requires things like bubble wrap and time. It isn’t enough to just get the dogs out of the house for a showing and hope that counts for something in the minds of potential buyers. These days, cleaning products are involved, along with something our Realtor might call intentionality. This means presenting the home you’re trying to sell in the best light possible. For my husband, who refers to us as maximalists (owing to the hundreds of large and small art pieces scattered over mantels and tabletops and bookshelves and desks and windowsills), this means putting most of those things in boxes and pretending, for the amount of time potential buyers are picturing themselves living in our home, that they do not exist. This is hard for him.