Not the Moving Experience I Had Planned

But is it ever?

Photo by Javi Hoffens on Unsplash

I was finally just drifting off to sleep for a badly needed nap when I felt the bed shake. A family member had clearly let the dog into the room and she had hopped up onto the foot of it. I didn’t move, hoping she would go away if I ignored her. But then the bed shook again, in a bigger-than-dog kind of way.

Wait, no.

This isn’t shaking.

And in fact . . . it’s not my bed that’s moving. It’s the whole damn house that is swaying.

I jumped up as I realized we were in the middle of an earthquake, knowing it might be the “big one” that experts have declared will be the inevitable result of high tension between subterranean continental plates here in the Pacific Northwest.

It couldn’t be more perfectly appropriate that an earthquake would arrive right now, literally in the middle of our moving to a new home.

The tension between the psychic plates in my own inner core are likely carrying more foot pounds per square inch than western Canada’s continental shelf. In fact, I may have been the epicenter of the whole disturbance and should probably apologize to the hundreds of thousands affected.

That’s what happens when you start moving your stuff.

Said stuff is currently scattered across the floor and half-packed in a variety of second-hand Uhaul boxes that have been mysteriously labeled things like “letters from alfred” and “china careful” by a prior user.

As I don’t have the energy to re-label them this is sure to leave me baffled when I get around to actually unpacking said boxes in my new home. But I can’t even contemplate that right now. I’m too busy eating the remains of stale Rye Crisps that have been exhumed from the back of the pantry in an attempt to use up the food in the house.

I haven’t exercised in days, I’m postponing responding to any incoming business opportunities, and I don’t dare look in a mirror for fear I’d have to do something about what I see. Which would probably be to sleep.

My list of to-dos would cripple the brain stem of the world’s most competent multitasker. In fact, I have absolutely no business writing this article, but I’m in creator withdrawal—big time—and so, here I am for a quick fix at midnight with little confidence that what I’m writing will be distinguishable from gibberish.

I don’t know what kind of astrological chart would cause an individual to move 36 times in 63 years of life, but I’m clearly under the influence of those stars. And I’m not kidding about having lived in 36 separate places.

The question is “WHY?”

Perhaps I was a tornado in a previous lifetime and I inherited the bad karma of having uprooted so many others that I haven’t been able to stay in one place longer than it takes to make instant oatmeal.

And, that 36-move-tally does not even include four extended tours covering hundreds of cities as a young performer and actor, or having completed more than 400 business trips as a professional speaker in the last two decades.

Since the first seven of my moves before turning 18 were involuntary I think I could reasonably claim that it’s not my fault that I am currently addicted to collecting new front door keys in my own adulthood.

Just out of curiosity I decided to document all the places I have called home. Home being defined as the place where you’re the one who gets to decide whether the toilet paper roll dispenses from the back or the front of the roll.

• Born — Willimantic, Connecticut — USA

• 2 yrs — Eugene, Oregon — USA

• 3 yrs — New Concorde, Ohio — USA

• 5 yrs — Whitefish Bay, WI — USA

• 8 yrs — Greenfield, WI — USA

• 11 yrs — Greendale, WI — USA

• 14 yrs — Little Rock, AR — USA

• 15 yrs — tour of US theaters with a youth repertory company

• 18 yrs — Webster Groves, MO — USA

• 20 yrs — Little Rock, AR — USA

• 20 yrs — Little Rock, AR — USA

• 21 yrs — Little Rock, AR — USA

• 22 yrs — 1 year road tour with Broadway musical playing 70 cities across the US

• 23 yrs — Little Rock, AR — USA

• 24 yrs — Antelope, OR — USA

• 26 yrs — Little Rock, AR — USA

• 26 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 27 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 28 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 29 yrs — Little Rock, AR — USA

• 29 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 30 yrs — 7 month bike tour street performing in New Zealand and Australia

• 31 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 32 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 32 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 33 yrs — 1 month traveling in Hong Kong, Shenzhen

• 33 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 34 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 38 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 44 yrs — Prescott, AZ — USA

• 48 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 49 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 55 yrs — Paulden, AZ — USA

• 59 yrs — Prescott, AZ — USA

• 61 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

• 63 yrs — Vancouver, BC — Canada

So, as you can see, I have moved a lot.

Studies (that I’ve made up in my own mind) conclusively show that most Americans would prefer to welcome agents of a surprise IRS tax audit into their home than they would to move.

If you’re facing a move yourself, I am the credible choice to help you face a move without losing your toothbrush — or your mind — in the process. My strategy for surviving these upheavals is quite simple.

Indulge in copious amounts of complaint until it becomes comedic and embrace the chaos.

There’s nothing fun about:

• Scraping 11 years worth of dried salad dressing off the shelves of your fridge just to get your damage deposit back.

• Or wondering whether the pet hair you’ve just vacuumed off your carpet should be thrown away or carbon-dated to verify your original move-in date.

• Or getting a letter from an archeological research team suggesting that your bathroom floor may be preserving secrets of an ancient civilization.

This is all to say that it’s not your fault if you find yourself questioning the intelligence of a God who put dust and window blinds in the same universe.

Moving objectively sucks. And as a human, you have the right to dread it, delay it, and distract yourself from it. But, when you can’t deny the reality of it any longer, there’s only one thing you can do.

Embrace the chaos.

In fact, you can hasten the comedic effect of moving by accelerating that chaos.

• Talk to everybody you meet about your move. Tell them how hard it is, how hard it’s going to be, and the permanent trauma that will likely result.

• Especially tell your enemies that you are moving as there is a good chance they will leave you alone and not try to make your life even more miserable— such is the pity that moving invokes.

• Grumble about how much crap you have even as you box it up and write “misc stuff” on the label so you can be stumped by where to put it when you arrive at your new home.

• Get your friends and family involved with the drama. Invite them over to help on moving day so they can get underfoot the professionals while offering to take furnishings to which you are most attached off of your hands.

Moving is an absurd and ludicrous ritual that involves throwing enormous resources of time, money and energy at the attempt to preserve our attachments to objects and circumstances that are governed by impermanence.

You might as well make moving as visibly ridiculous as it actually is.

Once you’re done complaining and suffering about your move, there are some significant upsides to relocating your person and losing a portion of your belongings in the process.

• Umm . . .

• Ah . . .

• Er . .

I’m just too tired to think of them at the moment.

Maybe I’ll go back to bed.

I want to be fully rested for the big one.