We Haven't Slept For Weeks: On Moving

For about a decade, we’ve lived in one six-stack apartment building or another. We think they’re neat, but also, we’re not sorry to be out of there.

So, about three weeks ago, Edgar and I up stakes and moved for a different part of town. We weren’t priced out, this time: the ceiling leaked so bad that part of it fell in, revealing a composition that was as much mold and horsehair as it was plaster. Being adults, with adult jobs, in our thirties (late thirties, for myself) we decided that this wasn’t something that would stand.

We’re very happy with the new place, but there was still something that stood between there and here: the move.

Moving from one house to another is often considered to be one of the most stressful things a person can do, after the death of a spouse. I’m not sure I fully believe this – it seems to me that there are degrees. Our new home is about ten minutes from our old one, if you know what you’re doing, and I imagine migrating from one country to another – even if your family is intact – would be more stressful than that.

But, in the course of a relatively sedentary life, it’s probably up near the top of the list of “stressful events that don’t involve anyone dying.” The reason for this is fairly simple: you get a bunch of people together and you clean out your old house. It’s part of the process of dealing with the fallout of someone’s death, but you have to do it for yourself.

In this way, moving is close to grieving. Alongside this, it shows you the failures of both your grief and your gratitude: you find yourself stuffing thoughtful gifts and family photographs into a reusable shopping bag that contains the stapler you bought because you forgot you had another stapler and a bunch of phone chargers that have plugs that don’t fit into modern phones. And all you feel is annoyance.

That’s the part that made me feel self-loathing, honestly, though perhaps it’s the Catholic upbringing channeling that annoyance into guilt. I have these meaningful things, these gifts from people who are no longer with us, these constituent pieces of the environment that I built for myself, and I’m annoyed that I’ve got to do something about it.

And beyond that, there’s the mourning.

It’s not necessarily that you wished you could stay in the space you’re leaving, it’s that your life is changing. My theory is that grief is the emotion caused by such changes. The loss of a particular course through life and the confrontation with the uncertainty of a new one. You mourn because that iteration of yourself is being mothballed, and maybe you’d just gotten it how you really liked it. You’re going to have to figure out the kinks in this new self you’re going to build momentarily. You’re going to have to discover what it is, really, and I believe that the emotion of this is grief.

And don’t get me started on the fatigue.

I’m an English teacher, as I’ve mentioned, and I have about eighty students this semester. Edgar’s working full time, and our roommate – yes, we have one – gets up early to work online for a company based in Europe every day. Getting the whole house squared away has been a bit of a steep hill to climb.

So what can we pull from this. What philosophy of everyday life becomes visible beyond the muddle of fatigue and grief and the never-ending logistics of getting everything you own in this world from point A to point B and not losing it?

I should just go and take a picture of our actual boxes, but its late and I want it done, so have this picture from Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by MoveON moving and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license.

Well, as much as we all long for a kind of maximalist, lived-in quality to our homes, the popular trend towards minimalism in interior decorating does have a certain utility if you’re expecting to move. There is a paucity of nomads who own hardwood dining room tables, and there’s a reason for that. While I’ve never seen Heat, I have encountered it heavily referenced in several places, including one of the chapters of Capitalist Realism. The key quote is “[d]on't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat” – and that’s also true of the life of a renter. If you’re going to move every 1 – 5 years, you’re going to struggle with things. You’re going to break furniture, you’re going to drop a box of plates, you’re going to misplace that book.

This is all just table stakes.

And it’s true that the important things in life aren’t possessions, they’re people. But have you noticed how many gift-giving holidays we have? Have you noticed how the exchange of physical tokens of affection is enshrined in our society? Things aren’t just things, they’re icons for the relationships between people. Just as a stained glass window or a crucifix isn’t an embodiment of a god – just as a statue of the Buddha is not the Buddha – the thing isn’t the relationship. But it represents it.

And the spaces in which you live becomes like this. It’s the field created by all of these things. All of these things arranged in space – the cheap bookshelf from target with the first edition of one of your favorite novels on it, and a stack of childhood photographs on top, next to the rack where hangs one of the shirts that your partner found, one of the few ones that fits right – gives that place its feeling for you. The meaning arises out of all of these things being put together and next to each other and that field of emotion is the feeling of home.

As we drove home last night from a party thrown by some of their coworkers, Edgar relaxed in the passenger seat of the car I drive and put on songs by the Mountain Goats, including “Color in your Cheeks”, a song about hospitality and sanctuary: “Come on in / We haven't slept for weeks / Drink some of this / It'll put color in your cheeks.”

And home is where you do that for yourself and the people close to you.

And when you move home it’s wrenching and uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to be bad. You can mourn the life you had while being excited for the life you’re having. The panic of the move – the crushing deadlines, the abjection of moving one box (by yourself [alone]) when no one is available to help you, the laundry – might make you feel like you are burying a self you sloughed off. But loss is inevitable, and at some point you have to put a pin in that and leave it.

And you have to sit down at the table with the person or people who share your home. And you have to welcome them in, and you have to commiserate with them, and you should probably offer them a drink.

After all, living with people is being host and guest at the same time, and there’s a joy to that.

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