There’s nothing quite so unsettling as a major move.
Plagued by timing unpredictability. On guard for daily disturbance.
We’re supposed to be adept at managing the sketchy, difficult stuff life throws at us, yes? Seasoned as we’ve been by heartache, isn’t that right?
To a point.
If ever I needed reminding that rational thinking and planning only gets us so far, this past chaotic year — consumed by change and at the mercy of the market — did the job.
Move Angst
Once again I learned that to-do lists are often nothing more than our fragile attempts to bring order to the disorder we find ourselves inhabiting.
Home is the place we’re supposed to feel at peace. But what happens when your home is no longer under your control? Somewhere on the horizon is a move date, but it’s elusive and can continue to push just out of reach. Amid the wait, there’s nothing we can do but steep in the unrest. Permit discomfort to wash over us. Summon our energy to simply be.
Flashes of insecurity and powerlessness gripped me repeatedly in the 10 months it took to sell our California house. During our sometimes frenetic de-contenting efforts we’d body slam into a flood of remembrances. Stuffed into the hidden recesses of closets, drawers and cabinets lay keepsakes and snippets of our 16 years of family-focused hopes and dreams.
Memories Stripped Away
Embedded in the walls now denuded of personal pictures are tears, whispers and sighs — the ghosts of who we once were, the family we tried to build. Under the eves and hidden amid the backyard garden live remnants of a once tempestuous reckoning. The kitchen table where I tentatively began my Coming2Terms blog went to the consignment store. It now resides in some mystery persons’s residence, radiating still, one hopes, the vital energy that birthed Silent Sorority.
Through it all, your cards and words of encouragement surfaced and resurfaced. In the slow unraveling of the recent past and the long goodbye we came face to face repeatedly with what might have been. We buried, once more in boxes, the mementos too precious to go into a trash or recycle bin.
Now in northern Nevada surrounded by cardboard boxes we live in a construction zone. We awake each morning to noises from nail guns and saws. The cacophony signals a new beginning, the next string of decisions and a new set of dreams.
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Amid our move and home-related turmoil some new and remarkable women came into my life. More on those encounters in upcoming posts. On the Move – to be continued.
I have just voted! 23rd vote was mine :)
It is lovely to see a new post from you after such a long time and I am looking forward to the ones to come.
And – I am looking forward to seeing one day your beautiful new home renovated.
sending you kind regards from Europe.
Oh Pamela. Your description of your move brought tears to my eyes. I’ve been in this boat all too recently and it hurts. I’m so sorry it’s been a 10 month journey. So painful.
May unpacking bring healing in your new space. Sending love lady.
I can hear the memories in this post, Pamela. Like Cristy, it brought tears to my eyes too – thinking of you, of course, but also feeling those emotions and knowing that when we leave this house, it will be the same.
I also don’t envy you the ten months of uncertainty. I hate being in limbo like that, so you have my sympathies and my admiration for what you’ve been through. I hope the uncertainty at the moment is more exciting – decisions, planning, and as you said, new hopes and dreams. Though once again, you have my admiration.
Good luck for the blog competition. You’ve done so much for this community, and are definitely a most loved blog! I’m voting away.
Seems like several of us either have moved over the past while or have moves in the works! — I can definitely relate to the pain of downsizing and packing up, and reorienting yourself to a new space in a new community. Ten months is a long time to be in limbo, though! — not including renovation time in your new home! If anything, though, I think infertility has taught us to live with uncertainty, and that this too shall pass…eventually, if not without pain. Sending (((hugs))) & hopes that your new space is shaping up to be all you wanted it to be!
Many thanks, all, for the good wishes. Starting to feel genuinely settled and ‘at home’ in the best sense of the idea.
Selling a house sounds absolutely scary! But the moving part may come with thrilling new encounters (ok, I am a bit of a moving addict). I don’t think that your kitchen table is radiating anything, but YOU are and the vital energy is in you. And some of it did radiate in all the women that read Silent Sorority and whose lives have been changed by it! Big hugs and best wishes for an exciting and awesome new home.
As Loribeth said, you are not the only one to have moved this year. I did, too! It was exhausting, even though we had no house to sell and no renovation to wait for.
I can only imagine what such a long period of waiting can do to you when all you want is to move on. Sometimes we do think we should be used to certain things or be able to deal better with them because of what we have been through. However, I have learned it does not work this way. Some things will always be hard, however much “experience” we have.
I wish you good luck with the construction work, but also a wonderful fresh start once your new home is finished. For me it has been so healing to declutter and leave behind the walls tinted with the memories of trying to conceive and the grief of when it did not work out. Our new home is just for the two of us – beautiful and all we need! It makes me happy. I hope it will be similar for you, too.
How exciting that you’re leaving some things behind and making room for new things. I can see how this would be a swirl of emotions for you, the memories good and not-so-good, and the reminders of your IF journey and the early days of your blog. Makes me think of what I’d find if I did my own excavating…