Relocating Is Always A Moving Experience
Newcastle Herald
Thursday September 11, 2003
STANDING in the chaos of half-packed boxes, staring at years of accumulated dust where the television cabinet once was, desperately searching for the bubble wrap.
It's enough to reduce any woman to tears.
The carpet has all but disappeared into the disaster zone that was once a lounge room and making a dash for the kitchen involves a strategic plan of attack.
There's nowhere to step because cups and bowls wrapped in newspaper have taken over the house and locating the packing tape is impossible when the contents from every cupboard are on the floor.
The bathroom and the bedrooms haven't been touched because you have been cornered into the lounge room and the once spotless house seems less so after the furniture has been shifted.
Cobwebs and dead creepy crawlies mysteriously emerge everywhere and you realise the clean-up job in the ``spotless" house will be far more tedious and time consuming than you could have ever imagined.
As with all life's stresses, moving is the surest way to land yourself a mighty big headache.
It does not matter how much pre-planning and organisation is devoted to the event.
Something always goes wrong and you are almost guaranteed bad weather.
It is not only me who finds the process of stacking books, wrapping breakables and tossing away years of collected junk stressful.
The experts rate moving up there with divorce and death.
Once the removalists have sucked the bare bones from your home and left it lifeless, the gloom sets in.
Moving house should be a celebration of chapters opening and closing.
It is an event that, in theory, should be greeted with excited anticipation.
New beginnings, new opportunities, new challenges.
But once you find yourself knee deep in crates, moving loses any appeal.
I haven't moved for some time but that has not made me immune from the stresses that come with relocating.
It may not have been my house or life that was shifted across town or city but I have still been very much involved in the moving process this year.
It seems all my closest friends have moved in recent months and, not surprisingly, I have been called in to help those nearest and dearest in my life.
I have packed, re-packed and unpacked with kitchens my speciality.
One or two of the relocations have been the basic need-more-space move or found-new-job move.
But there have also been a couple that were made even more stressful because they marked the end of a relationship.
If painstakingly packaging champagne glasses and serving platters into boxes isn't traumatic enough, it becomes even more so when it arrives in the middle of a painful break-up.
I used to scoff at the suggestion that moving was one of the most stressful events in your life.
The idea that moving house could feature in a stress chart nestled between losing a person you love and leaving the person you planned to be with forever was baffling.
But I was caught up in the romantic notion that moving was all about setting up house.
Yet another friend is about to move.
Being a male he has naturally underestimated the time it will take us to not only pack but also to clean his unit from top to bottom in readiness for the new tenants.
I was desperate to come up with an excuse to escape the dreaded task, to free myself from the reams of packing tape and mountains of newspaper I would find myself in. But then I had a thought.
If nothing else I will have several pairs of hands to call on when the time comes for me to move again.
It may not make it any less stressful but it will be enjoyable watching my friends share the pain that has been inflicted on me this year.
© 2003 Newcastle Herald
