Death, Divorce and Moving House
The words death and divorce will generally get a reader’s attention; moving house not so much. But, did you know that these are alleged to be the top three things that can cause you major stress, ill health, and even, possibly death? When I read that little factoid, the first two did not surprise me one bit, but the third gave me some food for thought, which took me back to my last moving house experience and just how many grey hairs I gained from the exercise, (plus my resolve – and the resolve of those around me – to never, I say never, repeat the experience again. My husband and I have an agreement – already – that if we split, we will split the house in half and share it. He can have the kitchen; I take the lounging tub. We hated moving that much!) We chose to move house at a really unbelievably stressful time in our lives, in any case. Having happily lived together for quite some time in unwedded bliss, we opted to get married, almost simultaneously with the realization that we needed to move house. Not content with fleeing the state quietly on our twosome and finding the chapel of ‘Elvis in Vegas’ for our eternal commitments, we had to invite the whole darn family; that meant not just the good people of Watsonville, the Washingtons and Oregon, but also the British contingent. The ever-so-smart plan was to move house in July and get married in August. Ha! If ever you think that that might be a good idea, please use the benefit of my many stress lines and eternally grey patches of hair to tell you that you couldn’t have a worse idea if you tried. This is what happens when you try to move house whilst living under the most unbelievable tornado of a deadline:-
1. You plan to pack the garage that weekend. The caterer calls and wants to meet you at the “site” to discuss set-up arrangements. The garage stays unpacked. 2. You save all the boxes from work, planning to pack two boxes a night to be on schedule. The kids have a bonfire and burn all the boxes. 3. You plan to take all the pictures down from the walls and patch the walls. (You will need that deposit with all the wedding bills you are accumulating). Your sweet teenage son gets arrested and you have to go and bail him out. 4. You totally intend to pack up the garage, marking all the boxes with anal concern, plus give the garage a good clean, (again to make sure you get that deposit back). Child number two takes this weekend to announce that he needs to move back home and where has his bedroom gone anyway? Plus he needs boxes to bring all his stuff back to your home. 5. You need to spend that weekend taking all the items down from the porch and packing them away in the new boxes that you have brought from work. You even have a marker pen that works. The DJ calls and wants to meet you out at the ‘site’ to discuss the music, location of the DJ equipment and so on. The magic marker disappears. It is later found without its top and has to be thrown away. 6. You have a new plan which means that you have to pack 10 boxes a night to get back on schedule. Your in-laws announce that they need to move in with you. They can no longer live at the brother’s house, while they wait for their home to be finished. You contact the landlord who tells you that your folks can’t move in; there are too many people on the one septic tank already and they don’t even know about the return of child number two. You have to go and deal with the brother and the in-laws’ living arrangements. You’re already a week behind with your 10 box plan. 7. The caterer calls. The price per plate just went up due to the cost of dish liquid or some other such trivia. Plus they need to meet you out at the “site” to check that the dishes match the color of the ocean appropriately. 8. All of a sudden, all kinds of special friends and family members come out of the woodwork to announce that they have not yet received their wedding invitation. 9. You call the caterer. The price per plate just went up due to the lack of warning about untold guests. 10. You are now needing to pack 12 boxes per night to be on schedule. And so it went on, until we finally tied the knot on a chilly foggy August morning in front of too many of our very bestest friends and relatives in the whole wide world. We had moved house about two weeks before and were still suffering sore backs, torn nails and the deep furrows of a highly stressful experience. If we would have had time and money for a honeymoon, we would have slept the entire time amidst piles of unpacked boxes. We didn’t get all of our deposit back; the cost per plate continued to rise; we still have stuff in boxes – not all of them marked – and we survived to tell the tale; in fact we are still married even. The moral of this story is that if you are planning on moving house; do not underestimate the overwhelming impact this seemingly slight life-event will have on yourself and your family. It does take a village to pack up a life and move it on to another village. Do not imagine that you can combine such a life-heaver with any other kind of life-heaver and get through the experience unscathed.
Lucy hasn’t moved house since and is not planning to.
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