Have you decided to up sticks and move house but the thought of doing so has left you contemplating sealing yourself in a packing box and never coming out again?
Don’t worry, you are not on your own. Moving house is stressful for pretty much everyone, and if somebody tells you it’s not, they’ve either never done it, or they’ve had somebody move house for them.
Let’s put it into perspective – you have spent years making your house lovely, buying little pieces of furniture and ornamentation that makes your home personal. And if you’re honest with yourself, you have also spent those years filling drawers, cupboards and cubby holes with a fair degree of rubbish as well.
We all do it.
Did you know moving house ranks as being one of the most stressful events in life, along with organising a wedding, dealing with a death and having a child. Who knew?
It will most definitely put a strain on your relationship and that rather large vein in your forehead pulsing with rage every time you find items you haven’t packed or cannot fit all of your prized possessions into your moving packaging.
So what exactly makes it so stressful?
Lots of things, and here are just some of them:
Getting the House Ready to Go On the Market
The first hurdle is clearing out all the years worth of rubbish you don’t want in your current house, or your new one. How many items have you found that come under the ‘we might need it one day’ category? It can be a really stressful and laborious process sorting through the house jumble, and the stress gets even worse when you have various other members of the family ruining all your hard work.
You pack a box and feel happy. Five minutes later there’s a small person rummaging through it asking why you’re getting rid of this and that.
You pack another box and feel happy. Five minutes later there’s a cat hanging out of it playing with the packing tissue.
Why is it when you summon the energy to get the job done, the universe saps the energy straight back out of you within a few minutes?
Paperwork
Why is it that you have to endure a novel’s worth of paperwork to move house? Would it be easier to hire someone to write your signature because you appear to have to sign more signatures than a C list celebrity on a daily basis? The mounds of paperwork are positively soul destroying.
The Finances
When you move house you have to have your monetary fingers in lots of pies, and when that money doesn’t stretch far enough you can end up stood in the middle of B&Q crying over the fact that the shade of magnolia you need is more than you expected.
It’s a problem that affects everyone and anyone (unless you’re a millionaire) because so many people need your money before you seem to be able to move forward. There’s home improvements to be paid for just so you can sell the house, while you put a deposit on a new house, then try to find the money for the move itself and all that as standard if you don’t have to on top of that manage new jobs in a new area.
The Relationship
How many times have you broken up with your partner during your move? How often have you threatened murder? Suicide? Divorce? Abandonment? How many times have you argued over who has packed the most boxes? Or whose job it was to ring the surveyor?
This will be a serious test of your relationship but do have faith, you will end up sat on the kitchen floor of your new house with a bag of chips and a glass of wine sighing with relief that you did it together… before the arguments start about unpacking…
The Children
I do not think this needs any explanation!
The Time
Why is it when you buy a house and sell yours you seem to have approximately 33 minutes to actually move house? And why is it when you know you have 3 months to pack, that you start off at a moderate speed, labelling everything properly, and then end up throwing anything and everything into recycling bags and bin bags in sheer panic as all of a sudden you’re moving next week.
With those being just a few of the demands placed on us when we move, is it any wonder we end up looking like angry raisins by the end of it all?
Try to remember that it will be worth it and it will be OK. You might scream, shout and throw a fair few tantrums during the process, and the neighbours will be twitching the curtains as you inevitably break down in the street, phone in one hand, child in another. But everyone has been there, and everyone will experience this at some point. This is simply your time to shine.
If it all gets too bad, fold yourself into that warm, quiet packing box and label it ‘do not disturb’.
