Update on the Possible Move is this: AFTER Paul pushed for this house and this move, to the point where I thought “I would need to Really Hate this house in order to stand in his way on this,” and AFTER we made an offer, THAT’S when Paul joined me on Anxiety Island. Suddenly he was all “Do we really want to do this???” and “Is this really how we want to spend our money???” and “Do we even WANT to move???” Oh good.
I am trying to think about it like this: I BADLY WANTED each pregnancy/baby—but there were times during each pregnancy that I had misgivings or even panic about the pregnancy/baby/decision. A wanted baby is still a huge life-changing upheaval, and there are so many unknowns about the particular child, and there can be fears such as “What if I don’t love this child as much as my first child?” and “What if later we wish we’d stopped one baby sooner?,” and there can be stressful feelings about the upcoming delivery, and so on and so on. I would not at those times have wanted someone to say to me “YOU are the one who wanted this!!”
I continue to have my own panicky feelings about the house and the move and all the million stressful things that go along with a move. I can swing wildly between “THIS IS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE AND WE NEED TO GET OUT OF IT” and “This is fine and it’s a fun adventure and it’s a great opportunity to go through all our stuff!” in, like, a five-minute period of time. I’m using a lot of lavender-vanilla-scented stuff—it’s supposed to be calming. I’m also using a fair amount of gin.
It helps me to think about things such as these:
1. When I play computer games, I have a tendency to hoard the boosters or money or whatever, and/or I play the game on the most efficient mode, even when neither of those things are the FUN-maximizing way to play the game. Sometimes I will spend real actual money to buy coins/tickets/whatever for the game, so that I can get the cooler stuff—and then I hoard those forever and never use them on the cooler stuff because I can’t figure out what I most want to spend them on. Later I lose interest in the game and stop playing it, leaving all those boosters and coins/tickets/whatever behind. That is not what I want to do with ACTUAL LIFE. I don’t want to stay in our current house forever just because it’s not efficient to move, or just because it will cost some boosters/coins. Eventually I will no longer be playing this game, and I’d rather not abandon it with all those boosters/coins unused.
2. This house represents a Fun Different Life Mode to Try: it’s “Living in a Big Old Historical House in Town” mode. There are a number of things that will be quite different about our life, including being able to walk to a bunch of places we currently drive to. I think it’s possible/likely that this will result in us participating in more town events, since we’ll be Right There and can just stroll over, instead of having to think about it and make plans and find parking and so forth. If we do get a dog, that too will be an interesting new life mode. And we might get chickens. And Paul is doing a lot of research on the new house and finding out interesting historical stuff; owning an old house might make us both more interested in town history and give us a new hobby. And if we try this new life mode and it’s not for us, we can change it again: it’s still fun/interesting to have tried a few different ways of living over the course of a lifetime.
3. We’ve moved before and it always seems unbelievably overwhelming but it always gets done and then everything calms down and gets normal again.
4. Lots of people change houses a lot more frequently than us, and it’s no big deal. Like, they just move! It’s a normal life thing! They don’t get THIS STRESSED about it! Perhaps I too could dial it back a bit!
5. My friend Morgan LOVES so many aspects of moving, and her enthusiasm is very bolstering. She says things like, “I want to come over and help you pack!!” and “I want to see the new house and talk about FURNITURE!!” She sees the whole things as an Interesting Project, and that helps me to see it that way too.
6. My friend Surely is in love with the house, and her enthusiasm is also very bolstering. She looks at the photos and says things like, “I am OBSESSED with x!!” and “Ooo, what is that door across from the sink??” It makes me love the house more.
7. My friend Melissa is a calmer, more sensible version of me: we have enough personality overlap to empathize strongly with each other, but she doesn’t get as FREAKED by things. So she can say things that make total sense to my brain, but with her own steadier spin on it. Plus, she and her family have lived in several old houses. She says things like, “Your current house is great, but it’s in a bad location. The new house is in a much nicer location and will be easier to sell—either in a few years if you don’t end up liking it, or when you get old and have to sell it” and “We’ve lived in old houses that haven’t been anywhere near as updated as this one; this one will be way easier to deal with.”
8. This could be a fun adventure for Paul and me to do together. We don’t have many shared interests, but we’re both riveted by this house and the possibilities. We’ve talked to each other more in the last two weeks than in the last year, I think. And we’re already making plans to walk to each newly-walkable-to restaurant in turn.
9. A LOT of the current stress is based purely on dealing with the realtor and the seller and the various evaluators and all the other unfamiliar people and processes and decisions involved in transferring a house from one owner to another, and all of that is going to go away soon.
10. As moves go, this is a nice easy one. We are not even moving to a different town. It’s the SAME town, the SAME school system. We don’t have to figure out new school, new doctors, new dentist, new grocery store, new friends, new library; we don’t have to have records transferred or figure out new utilities.
11. This is all very stressful but it’s not Really Bad Life Thing stress. It’s just CHANGE stress.
It also means new things to talk about with us! I’m excited for you and your new house.
I hope your offer is accepted and all the inspections turn out great! I think you’ll be happy in the new/old house.
One thing — you said:
“As moves go, this is a nice easy one. We are not even moving to a different town.”
Do yourselves a big favor and move as if you’re going cross-country. By this I mean, HIRE A MOVING COMPANY. Do not think, Oh, this is easy, we’ll just shuttle over every day with a few things. NO. Even though we moved 90 percent of our stuff with a moving van and strong young men, the 10 percent of what we schlepped over by car — less than 3 miles — seemed ENDLESS. My husband kept saying, “We’ll just bring that over in the car” and soon we had a roomful.
It was surprisingly affordable and totally worth it.
Oh god, yes. I’ve done the bit-by-bit thing, it’s horrible and never-ending, and that was just the content of an (admittedly over-full) apartment moving to a bigger flat. I recommend movers, too.
I think I’m living vicariously through you, because this move sounds SO EXCITING and I cannot wait to read all of the details. I’ve never moved from a house in my entire life (all of my moves have been between apartments or apartment to our current house) so the scope of this is kind of hard to comprehend. What a fun adventure though.
I think it sounds great! And stressful! That’s life, ha! I just keep thinking of how much easier it is to move when you don’t have little kids. I remember when my husband and I moved the last time, we had three kids under five and it was such bullshit, we put everything in the truck except their beds and the two of us slept on the floor, like dogs, and WE are the ones who had to be in charge of a move in the next day! Everything is so much easier when no one has to take a nap, ha!
It feels in some ways like you’ve been getting ready for this, like the Swistle of five years ago maybe wouldn’t have considered moving where you could go to more things and seeing that as a PLUS. I’m so excited for you, I hope it all goes smoothly!
How are the kids feeling about the move? I’d imagine that being within easy walking distance of more things will be great for them too!
Also, yes yes yes, a thousand times yes to hiring movers. We’ve moved 8 times in the last 14 years (ugh, we’re done for a while now) and that is consistently the best money we’ve ever spent.
They have mixed feelings that seem to be going from the more-negative-than-positive mix they had when we first told them it was a possibility to a more-positive-than-negative mix now. I’d say only Edward still feels mostly not-happy about it. He and I have had several satisfyingly mopey conversations about how we’ll miss our STAIRS and our CLOSETS and our PANTRY and so on—which I then gradually segue into how I’ve felt the same way about other places I’ve moved away from, but then I often don’t end up missing those things forever.
The whole closing/attorney/bank/financial process is easily the worst part. The. Worst. Once that’s over you will have the fun surprise of boxes and figuring out where to put stuff! Plus, you get to put things you hate in boxes and then possibly “lose” them. I love unpacking. It will be fine :) you will be great and this will be a fun adventure!
Dammit, Paul! Swistle’s readers are very excited about her move and the attendant adventures.
(That hoarding-until-useless behavior sounds wee bit familiar. I still like delayed gratification, but I’m trying to remember the noun.)
I’m excited for you!
And since you brought up video games: I think you would enjoy Animal Crossing Pocket Camp mobile phone game. It’s very calming. You get to set up furniture in your camper and campsite. You grow flowers, go fishing, catch bugs, and make friends with different animals. No conflict.
We recently moved, and I was Paul in your situation. And my husband did say, “but YOU wanted this,” and I knew that, but I was still panicking. I think sometimes when you are the pusher you spend so much energy trying to convince the other person you forget to examine your own feelings/fears around the situation. Anyway, we have been in our new house for almost 2 months and I am so very glad we did it. I did write down everything I would miss about the house, and I took pictures, and I think those both helped.
We moved just over 2 years ago (to a different state). It was stressful but the unpacking/setting up is SOO much better than the packing/getting rid of things. So there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Also, we moved from walking distance to restaurants and other things to… not. And I really miss walking distance to things.
Finally, when I moved a created a master “moving to do list” in Excel which I have since shared with some friends. Everyone’s move is different but some friends said that having a starting point that someone else created was helpful. Happy to share at any point if it’s helpful at all.
Oh my gosh I would LOVE to see this!! I feel as if I’m just sitting around not doing anything because I don’t even know where to BEGIN. (The reason I feel this way is that I AM just sitting around not doing anything because I don’t even know where to begin.)
I have emailed it to you!
Thank you!!!
We just bought a house and finally finished moving in last weekend, and I sympathize with all of this. Moving is so hard! Not just the physical logistical stuff, but the leaving-the-place-you’ve-lived hard. And we were leaving a rental that we had only been in two years! I can’t imagine leaving a beloved house.
HOWEVER. You are so right that the really stressful stuff is temporary. The realtors and bank and title company stuff will be over very soon. The moving and unpacking will be over not long after that. And then you have a whole new chapter of your life that will be so fun!
Also, I have been so happy and surprised by how much EASIER things are in the new house. There’s enough space for everything to be put away, so there’s no endless pile of clutter that just doesn’t have a home. The layout makes more sense, so things don’t get out of place as often in the first place.
And for you, with your new house, you’re getting a cleaning service, right? So I would add an item to your list: way less stress over the house being dirty/cluttered.
Moving is awful and wonderful, a built-in opportunity to go through all your things and condense/discard/recycle/give away. We are older than you but just finished a downsizing move, and it was simply exhausting. The last few days, we operated in a “work 30 minutes rest 15” mode because our energy stores were just drained. But there is such an incredible sense of accomplishment and excitement at the end. I look forward to hearing about your processes. Oh, and that’s another advantage, blog fodder! :)
Oh! The purging as you pack is the absolute best. It is so liberating!
Yes! It’s as if you have the permission you always felt you needed to be rid of something. When the new place doesn’t “need” a thing, or you can’t think where you’d put it there…well what else can you do but jettison it? It will be thrilling.
I read “fun/interesting” as “funteresting” and have now decided I need to find more funteresting things to do.
after living in the same house for 27 years, we moved to a fixer upper in a historic neighborhood. We were worried about it, we knew there were things we’d miss, but we did it. We have been so happy here in the new place. Fixing it up helped us meet neighbors who were curious and they are grateful to see it restored. Our (grown) boys wish we’d done it years ago. It was definitely a positive change. The only thing we miss is the backyard pool, which we could do here but likely won’t. Our old house was built and designed to be a teen magnet (and it worked). Large pool, basketball/tennis court, putting green, tetherball, and a fire pit. It is just a cool to see the new family enjoying our old house.
I saw a house this weekend with a tiny little plunge pool. It looked about 2-3 feet deep and was just big enough that the owner could float around in one of those floaty pool chair things that have built-in cup holders and not bump up against the sides.
Chlorinated but very low maintenance. Looks like a decorative pond. Doesn’t take up a ton of space. Genius! If I move to a place that doesn’t have a pool and my kids are gone, I’d totally do this.
Wow – this is exciting! Yes, hard to move. You are lucky that you have so many friends and that you can pinpoint their influences and approaches. Lucky! Walking to stuff is the bomb! (We can only walk to church).
We bought our house and my husband had never seen it. That was very nerve-racking. AND our house wasn’t sold and they wouldn’t take a contingency. That was crazy stressful. Having 6 kids that were ages 10 down to 6 mos added a whole other element. I had one guy who really struggled – doesn’t like change. Moving was best decision ever. Love our house. Just added on to the kitchen. Never want to leave!
Good luck! It will all work out!
I’m very excited for you! We’ve moved 4 times in the last 10 years (work reasons) and are finally in a house we hope to keep. I agree that moving is stressful (even though I kind of enjoy all the purging/organizing/decorating that comes with a new place). But I feel like moving is awful in the same way that childbirth is awful. Like, it’s terrible in the moment definitely. But the moment is so relatively short. And the payoff is so hugely great that the memory of the awful process (childbirth/moving) fades very quickly!
Also, our first home was 150 years old and so quirky and delightful! We learned more of its history after we moved in and I was so charmed by the whole thing. Yay for old houses!
I think changing houses and neighborhoods without changing school systems is the BEST. All the good/fun/inspiring/personality-stretching things about moving and none of the bad having-no-friends and being-lost and not-getting-slang parts. Bonus: moving is a nice life demarcation; it is a sure fire solution to everything becoming one big time smear!
You have ALL of my sympathy for this move. Even good, wanted, uncomplicated moves can be fraught with anxiety and stress. Once I moved five times in 12 months and it was very hard. But I am excited for you to live somewhere that is more convenient to fun and useful things!
My fiancee and I are trying to move now. We are still renting and finding somewhere that is walking distance from her work, in an area that seems friendly enough that a couple of lesbians will be comfortable holding hands in the street, and willing to accept our five pet rats, is proving challenging.
I am very excited for your move. I am definitely looking forward to seeing pictures of the new house and what you do with it.
Change is hard. But you have managed to get a cleaning service agreement along with your new house! Yayyyy! I would move (loads of little kids and a thousand toys notwithstanding!) to get a cleaning service. That is G O L D.
This sounds like a wonderful new adventure for your family. I hope you are successful!
Your blog is my favorite HGTV show right now.
Ah, yes, Anxiety Island. A frequent haunt of mine. It’s so weird when the men come to visit… I am an anxious person by nature and habit, while my husband displays anxiety only when VERY stressed. When he does I am confused at first and then amused, like, can’t you deal? It’s normal to feel this way.