Hopefully the last time that we moved house

 

Dear Bloggers,

I have moved house four times in just over twenty years. You think that my family and I would be really good at moving, but there is always something that trips us up every time.

After having lived in the same house for 23 years, I left my parental home and moved in with the girl I fell in love with. She rented a little Apartment in a medium sized village. We bought our first house in the village where I was born and where I grew up. Although I was young and restless and had my challenges fulfilled as a man with tons of ideas. In the army I found that life could be tricky and some of us are not getting really old they faced death at an early stage. After that I worked in discotheques and restaurants served people with joy. Although these jobs were for the summer season and I had to work in factories during the rest of the time and it was not paying that well. I started looking for a new challenge and went sailing on a small cruise liner. Here I found joy only thing that was missing was my little miss. Being homesick I left after one cruise and picked up the old jobs again. My dearest surprised me with an application for a new starting route with Scandinavian Seaways and a job as a waiter. After getting married and our first born a financial crisis struck and I lost my job. I tried many different paths but nothing brought real satisfaction. I was so happy when I received a phone call to serve on the Hamburg to Harwich route. Difference was leaving to loves of my life behind to live my dream. We moved to another small village close to my wife’s parents so they could babysit if necessary. And we were talking about a second child as our former home was too small for it. Then the Tax office was making mistake after mistake and almost seized our home as we started to run out of money. I have the mentality of a streetfighter and don’t give up easy. We sold our house and got challenged to get a much lower mortgage and less to live in. We went from a new home to an old and lived out house and had to start all over from scratch.   

 

I had a dream that wouldn't let me rest. I wanted to renovate our old home and turn it into the house that we wanted.  My wife bought into my vision and after almost ten years we looked for a house that we could afford and that we could transform. The deadline for the sale of our beautiful home was coming closer and closer and we had a fourth night left to pack our stuff and move on.

In February 2018, we finally found it - an old, never updated in the last forty-some years. A little family home that was about to be collapsing under its conditions. It didn't have many features - except for a farmers door as a front door, floorboards that were moving with you. It had an outdoor laundry room in the shed and a very tiny toilet room and a tiny, dirty kitchen that was barely functional. Even the electricity had to be removed as it was more than forty years old. Also the plumbing had to be redone. So we took the floors out and started from scratch to remodel the intestines of the house. Fortunately, it had a bit of a yard were we could drop of all the old crap that was removed, the company having containers for all the wood, doors, drywall, bricks, concrete and whatever had been stuck in this house was located close to our house. We had several of them and if you sort it out it saves a pretty penny. After everything was renewed and brought up to todays standards. The foam concrete floor was poured and the underfloor heating was installed the next day. A week later the screed floor and the next week the tiled floor. Finally it was habitable again. In the weeks that followed, the electrical work was done and the plasterers did the walls downstairs. The upstairs was now ready for use because we lived in the middle of this construction site.

At a certain point, the ceilings were also installed and the house could be furnished with all the things that were in the garage and after almost 4 years of renovation, not all of them looked as good anymore. That night I woke up to a searing plastic smell. I looked out the window at the front and saw a bit of smoke. I had a bad feeling and went downstairs to see if everything was okay. I opened the back curtains and saw a flame dancing behind the garage window.

I raised the alarm and ran upstairs woke the children and sent them outside my wife grabbed the dogs and went out the front door. All my tools and materials burned as well as some of the furniture and all the paperwork and our other clothes. The blow was hard and complicated for someone with a trauma and two relatively young children. Yet we would overcome this too. Tough as nails they say. Even though my wife could not find her way as the city has its noises like: traffic noise. screaming sirens of fire brigade, police and ambulances. But also drunken youngsters on weekends and holidays were not uncommon. All year round some stupid guests let off firecrackers which made the dogs react rather nervously and bark out of fear. We decided to sell the property and find something more quiet again. We successfully found a house that needed a great bit of love to make it up to our standards again.

 

So we bought it. The pressure was then on to fix up our current house and pack up our stuff. We had to do a load of work to get the house ready for moving day. And a month is not enough to get everything up and running. Impossible is not in my vocabulary and everyone tried to be ready on the deadlines, not easy for the people that had to do the jobs. The bathroom was one of the issues as the guy that had to install it just gave up on us as he had no time left. My contractor found another plumber and the electrical work I took up for a great deal myself and another company made the new outlets for the freezer and the fridge. Still not everything is done but there is time now to do things later like painting the ceilings and walls.

 

Also, the garage floor needs to be demolished and then re-poured and will have underfloor heating and a tile floor put in. Furthermore, the garage will be split. the front will be my workshop and the back will be the utility room and laundry room for my wife. So still a lot to do in the coming time. Someday it will all be done and the dream will be complete. When I reach retirement I hope the chores will be over.

There is something about living in a house for a long time. You accrue a lot of things. And dare I say, my wife is most probably a hoarder. I am the one that keeps a lot of stuff if it comes to building. Tools I have average. We had quite a big garage, but the amount of stuff I had stored in there was phenomenal (that even excluded all the equipment for the garden I had stored at another location).

Planning the move took a lot of time and lots of tiny decisions. We planned on moving out the big things, the things we could see. Anything we didn't need for a couple of months we packed up and sent to our new rented storage room that we had in regional storage center. I spent countless nights boxing things. And registered all the goods in a spreadsheet. By the time we had our first open for inspection, it looked like we lived this magical, idealized life of a tidy house and lots of floor space (see photo above). It was like living in a sales folder with the perfect family.

 

It felt like a mirage.

When we finally moved (and had still five months) to prepare, we thought it would be easy. After all, we had most of our things in storage and we had also sold or donated a lot of things. I booked a big truck for a day.

By 2pm on moving day, it became painfully obvious things weren't going well. There were still so many boxes to get into the truck. By the time we arrived at our new house, it was dusk. We decided to stop for the night and get the rest tomorrow. The next morning we started early again and literally shoved all the furniture into our new house (so we couldn't use any rooms except the bedrooms).

Thankfully, we weren't living there on the first night. We went back to our old, clean house and slept on mattresses on the floor. We were exhausted and got a little scared of what laid ahead.

The next day was even worse. It was settlement day. I started cleaning and packing up the bits and pieces strewn around the home at 6am. By 10.30am, we were getting frantic calls from our real estate agent about when we would hand in the keys. At 11am, I had to go to the solicitor for the legal paperwork our real estate agent was not there as they were having a day out with the personnel.

We got out of there by 10am the sale had gone through. It seemed like a tiny cause for celebration.

In the end, it wasn't the big pieces of furniture that made our move so traumatic. It was all the bits of stuff we had accrued that I didn't know existed, as well as all the little things I didn't know what to do with. Random cables, pieces of plastic from unknown items, storage containers, pet toys.

 

Yet, what I severely underestimated was that it just wasn't our physical stuff that took a long time to sort, it was also the emotional baggage that lay trapped underneath. From exposing a hidden conflict with my spouse - her deep need to be surrounded by a lot of stuff and my need to have very little, as well as the more held back emotions of my wife as she started feeling lonely as I was not the best guy anymore as I forgot about us and was to busy with all the things to keep running our daughter (who is still traumatized by leaving her okay city home).

The annual house moves took a toll on both of us and trying to believe we were finally moving back home to a settled and easier life. The vision of a beautiful, clean and bigger house that was all ours had long lost its shine (or as our 20 year old proclaimed, "You have been promising this house to me since I was 16 and now I'm planning when I can leave home."

Yet, the whole experience has taught me a lot about when I can push people to change and when I cannot, as well as not ignoring the little things  become so overwhelming and energy-zapping.

During a move, you know not to throw every family member's clothes into one big box. You sort them into individual boxes. It makes it so much easier to unpack when you get to your destination.

 Change isn't something that comes naturally to humans.

 

A quote I heard recently "The old needs to drop away before the new can arise within you." Yet, we stubbornly hold onto the past and fear the new. Moving house is a process of allowing the old to fall away. It can be traumatic because we become so emotionally attached with where we are. Yet, sometimes there is something bigger and better waiting for us that we need to experience, in order to be the person we want to be. 

Everyone evolves at their own pace. Planning a big move or change is really about giving our brains the time it needs to absorb that a new life is ahead of us. Some of us hold on tightly to where we are because it feels comforting and safe, while others jump onboard the change train gleefully and excited. 

It's not until we have moved that we can finally let go of our old daily habits and behaviors. Sometimes the move is positive as we experience new things that light us up and give our lives meaning and joy.  Other times, the move is negative and we find ourselves trapped in a small place that feels like our freedom and autonomy has been reduced. What I learnt is to keep the dialogue open between family members. Focusing on the dream house didn't work with one teenager. Giving them the time and space to vent and complain seemed to be what they needed, as well as not reacting negatively to things they said that were hurtful. 

In years to come, I know I will look back at this time as when myself and my family transcended our limitations and stepped into a new reality. A time when we all learnt individually who we really are and how to interact better with one another during uncertainty and pressure.

 

The Old Sailor,