We have moved, and everyone is so happy for us, and I am so miserable. I know from previous experience that it is temporary misery. Do you remember the story about when Paul and I moved to a new state long ago in our youth, and I was 100% on board and happy with that move and in fact it was my idea, and I had no sad feelings about leaving my previous apartment, and the traveling was surprisingly fun, and then we got to the new city, and we were having dinner out and I realized I had left my toothbrush at the last hotel. And, good news: there was a drug store visible through the restaurant window, we could just stop there and get a new one! And then in the store I had a weepy meltdown because I couldn’t find the toothbrush aisle in this strange new store in this strange new city in this strange new state.
And anyway, without further revisiting that whole stressful time (the BUTTER STICKS were A DIFFERENT SIZE), I will say that my misery was intense, and I recognize it again now, and last time it was not a very long time before the misery was gone and could be turned into family language (“not knowing where the toothbrushes are” is used to describe any situation where temporary disorientation is leading to out-of-proportion misery).
BUT I AM SO MISERABLE. I hate everything about this. I don’t want to live here. I want my old house back. The movers were over three hours late and then tried to overcharge us, and it led to an emotional confrontation I can’t stop replaying in my mind even though it is over and settled (he wanted us to feel BAD for him because moving is “such hard work!!”—and that was his argument for why we should pay him for 9.5 hours instead of the 7.5 hours they actually worked). It feels impossible to figure out meals. One of the showers doesn’t yet have a shower curtain so we keep having to figure out how to get everyone showered in the other shower, which has a crummy weak showerhead, and the over-the-showerhead rack we have for shampoo and stuff doesn’t fit over it.
I am reminded of some of the things I’ve seen here and there and have found helpful in previous miseries. Things like “Eat some food, and don’t worry about what kind of food”—like, get pizza if getting pizza is what you can manage, don’t be all “No, it also has to be PURE RIGHTEOUS BEST-BITE food.” Things like “Take your vitamins/medicines.” Why does that seem too hard? I don’t know, but sometimes it does. I have a prescription for a mild sedative, given to me by my doctor for this exact kind of anxiety-misery; why am I still hoarding them as if there will be a better time to use them? “Drink a glass of water.” It seems like it won’t help so why bother, but it’s quick and simple and sometimes it’s the only manageable step. Unless the cups are all still packed. Maybe have bottles of water on hand for this.
I am also reminded of postpartum, when everything feels impossible and unmanageable, and even though everyone says “Don’t worry about it, just take care of you and the baby,” it just feels IMPOSSIBLE to do that. The dishes can’t just SIT THERE!! The baby’s clothes need LAUNDERING, or at least stain-treating. What about the thank-you notes? And there are half a dozen appointments I’m supposed to be making. There are SO MANY THINGS THAT NEED DOING AND I CAN’T DO ANY OF THEM. It seems like “Just take care of you and the baby” was better advice for the times when a household had a cook and several maids and also a night-nanny.
Anyway I am trying to remember how that time too was a time that passed. Eventually there was plenty of time to handle the dishes and the laundry. Eventually it was not a mind-strengthening logic puzzle to figure out how on earth I was going to take a shower. Eventually I wasn’t crying multiple times a day. I am finding huge comfort in commenter Corinne’s comment about her move:
I just saw a “one year ago” memory for myself on Facebook that said “I only cried twice today and I slept nearly all night” which was a big improvement and probably shined up for Facebook; that that was a week after our move. And now a year later I rarely think of it and am genuinely glad we moved.
Okay, so then I am still on-course for the move at this point. It doesn’t necessarily mean this was a terrible mistake and I will be miserable forever. Also we all have fresh colds. Even at my old house, it was pretty grim to have a fresh cold.
Today I am attempting to redirect thoughts such as “I hate it here” and “I don’t want to live here” and “I want my old house back” by keeping a camera with me and taking pictures of things that seem Good, or things I DO like. This morning Elizabeth took her breakfast to the dining room table (in our old house, the dining room table was not accessible or inviting), and I took my laptop (another recent change I am adjusting to) to the dining room table and sat across from her, and I had a nice view out the windows behind her. That was nice. And I am so glad I got the Christmas tree set up before we moved, and I took a picture of the three littler kids all on chairs in that room; I’d put out a bunch of treaty snacks on the coffee table after dinner. That was nice.
But the lock broke off our bathroom door the first time we used it. And the light fixture above the bathroom cabinet is positioned so that the cabinet doors scrape the lightbulbs every time we open the doors. And there’s a door that closes but then will suddenly and startlingly swing wide open for no apparent reason—probably when a different door in the house opens or closes. The downstairs toilet glugs repeatedly when an upstairs toilet flushes. Several locks have been installed weirdly so that you twist “the wrong way” to lock or unlock them. It’s quirky! It’s quirky! We love quirky! And we will gradually either solve all these problems or get accustomed to them.
But this kitchen is configured totally, totally different than my old kitchen, so there are no equivalent spaces. I can’t say “Oh, I put the cups in the cupboard next to the fridge,” because there is no cupboard next to the fridge. I know we’ll figure all this out, but right now it’s resulting in me standing in the kitchen, surrounded by a hundred cardboard boxes, holding a cheese grater, frozen with indecision.
The ONLY reason I survived our last move (9 years ago, and may it be the last!) is that I spent a solid week redoing the new kitchen before we moved, and in the moments of mindlessly scraping wallpaper I would be thinking “What if I put the pantry supplies there… ?” By the time we moved I had a plan. You have my sympathy!
I am so sorry you are feeling this way. I know a bit of that frozen anxiety mixed with despair feeling. But it makes sense. When we moved to a small town in a different state full of my loving and supportive relatives into my first choice house, I walked in our new home, burst into tears and told my husband I hated it so much because it was so very ugly. My small kids and I stayed with my parents for a few days to help me ease into it. But, soon, I grew to love it. I don’t think now is the time to horde meds! The move was before I had anxiety meds and I think they would have been useful. Unpacking is such a drag. Reward yourself for every little bit you get done.
I feel you. I also think that maybe buying a cheap shower curtain from the dollar store or Walmart just to have something to use in that other bathroom is a way to go. Last time I moved we couldn’t find any of our bathroom stuff for a while so I went to the dollar store and bought a dollar shower curtain and dollar rings and put it up just so we could shower. It got the job done.
I never feel settled until my kitchen is settled, and settling a kitchen is so hard! Last time I moved to a new house, I tried to place the cups and plates “logically”, like the cups need to be near the fridge and the plates need to be near the table/dishwasher, and two years later I still open the wrong cabinet for cups because at our last house it was on the opposite side.
I’m sorry you’re feeling forlorn, and I hope it passes quickly. Keep up with that self-care and apply booze when necessary.
This seems like exactly the time to go with whatever helps. Just how I got through post-partum, or our last move six months ago. I feel like caffeine? Drinking it. Chocolate? Done. I don’t drink alcohol but I suspect I would have used it liberally if I did. Basically treat yourself as gently as possible, and just push through until you feel like things are more manageable. And for goodness sake don’t hoard your meds! Good luck! Moving is so, so hard, but you got this.
We move next week, so I am following this story line with rapt attention. The only thing that makes this move less stressful is that we are moving from temporary housing into our “forever” house, so a lot of the paring down was done before we did the first jump. Anyway, one of the things I did sort of inadvertently in this temporary house was not to worry too much about where I put things in the kitchen. I typically have strong opinions about where things should go, but this kitchen was too small and awkward to worry about that. What ended up happening was that in the early days I started to open drawers where I thought things would intuitively be but alas weren’t there. And instead of continuing to always open the ziplocks drawer when I wanted silverware, I just swapped things out into their more logical places when I finally realized what those places were. It was a low stress way to quickly unpack, and i think I’ll do it again next week too.
OMG yes to the no equivalent spaces issue! And cabinets that open the opposite way! Our kitchen cabinets have no knobs and a couple of them open the opposite direction of they way my brain thought they should. It made me alternatey angry and despondent at first. BUT I am here to tell you that it is now 4 months after our move and I had already forgotten how much that bugged me at first. I have adapted and love this house now. Wishing you a speedy path to getting past the hard parts.
Oh Swistle! I totally understand. This happened when we moved to our house, eighteen years ago, and I still remember it so clearly. We left our sweet downtown apartment for a fixer-upper in a great neighbourhood. One of the selling points was it was a walk to the train station. Well, I used to WALK to work when we lived downtown, so every day while I was on the very-convenient train, I would cry. I hated our house so much. I hated how ugly everything was and the overwhelming amount of work we had to put into it all the time. Our entire life was taken up by renovating this house. It was so much bigger than the apartment. Things went wrong and WE HAD TO FIX THEM. I cried daily for the first three weeks. We had a guy come in to install a water meter and there was some sort of issue and I just burst into tears. He stood there uncomfortably, trying to tell me it was a standard issue. After the first three weeks, I cried a little less. Eventually I stopped crying altogether and of course, now I love our house and can’t imagine leaving it. The neighbourhood is so HOME to me now but at the time, I couldn’t even fathom liking it. And I wanted to move! So I get you, I totally do.
Not going to lie, the kitchen is important and I wouldn’t rest until it was done. I’ve learned to stand at the stove and pretend to reach for things. Where would you most likely find ____? Then put the things there. Orient the coffee maker nearish the sink, the mugs nearish the coffee and so on. So when you reach for something it’s there.
Also, if you can, sand down the top of the cabinet door so it doesn’t scrape the bulbs. It will help your nerves so much if the bulbs aren’t being tapped repeatedly.
Keep in mind that you’ll have to go through a certain amount of overwhelm and moments of frozen indecision before you come out on the other side. That makes those moments when you’re standing motionless with the cheese grater progress.
Speaking as someone who has not recently moved but DOES have a bad cold:
The cold ALONE is enough to make you feel terrible so a cold on top of everything else is just too much.
You have all my sympathy. I hope it doesn’t take too long to come out the other side and start feeling happily at home. Sounds like you have good insight into it all.
Courage!
Sending love, Swistle!
Oh Swistle! I know everything about moving sucks. Take the anti-anxiety meds; if not now then when? Just know that you are almost on the other side.
Darn it! My comment disappeared!
Moving totally sucks – moving with a cold is pure misery. Take the anti-anxiety meds; if not now then when? You are almost on the other side.
PUT SIGNS ON THE KITCHEN CABINETS. Make signs for general categories, assign to cabinets, and leave them there so that 1) other people can help unpack the kitchen 2) you don’t have to open every cabinet to find something. You can always swap them later if it doesn’t work out! Leave the signs up until the last box is either unpacked or stashed in an out of sight cabinet. Or longer if you want- it’s your house!
That’s a lot to deal with. The shower situation alone would make me unhappy. We have lived in our home for 12 years and just this last year we finally got the front door fixed. We had to turn the knob the wrong way to open the door and I can’t believe I spent over a decade explaining it (usually via text) to every pet sitter.
This reminds me of every move, ever, and also of starting a new job in the city when I’d never lived in the city. I took a subway, which was new and weird, and I walked on unfamiliar streets to go to a job where I felt all day long I didn’t quite know what I was doing and everyone would soon know. I remember thinking, as I walked out of the subway on my second day, “I can’t wait until this is just normal. Someday this will be the same boring commute I do every day, and I won’t even think about it.” It did happen, too, when I wasn’t paying attention. Anyway. Adjustments! Yeesh. Bleh. They must be good for us in some way.
It will be fine.
It will be fine.
It will be fine.
There will be some point in the near future where you look back and, while you remember how miserable you felt, it will be quite distant. In half a year, you will like this house, and it will feel familiar and like home. I promise.
Right now, I’d try to make sure there is one room that is as done and right as possible. It’s tempting to work on everything at once or to try to tackle a specific box mountain that will distribute things over several rooms, just to have that mountain gone. But it will likely be a big comfort if there is one safe haven that is already done, where you can go if the rest of the house feels like it will never be. Both a safe haven and a room that proves that, yes, eventually the other rooms will be like this, too. That it’s an attainable reality.
About the showers: can you switch either the shower heads or the curtains, so you have one “good” shower?
Otherwise I’d do what Kim above suggested, getting some cheap thing just to tide you over. Or even grab some tarp or large plastic sheet and tape it to the curtain rod with duct tape. Totally allowed! The priority is getting people clean and keeping the room dry, as long as that works out it doesn’t need to be pretty.
It will be fine.
Oh I feel for you.
When I’m adjusting to something it always helps me to think about how long it takes for new neural pathways to be formed in the brain, to make something into a habit and not noticed any more. It’s not that I made the wrong decision or am silly for not being instantly okay with this! It’s BIOLOGY! I can’t control biology!
Yes! I was just going to say something like this. Your brain is making all these new adjustments, and it must be part of the exhausted feeling. Even going up and down stairs: it’s a different pitch, different depth, the handrail is different. You can’t just gallop down the stairs if you want to! Muscle memory takes a while to build.
Oh, and the anxiety meds (I’m imagining ativan or xanax or something) are okay to use, especially to help you get a longer stretch of sleep. Alcohol has the opposite effect. It destroys sleep. So when I’m feeling massively stressed, l will occasionally use the sedative but skip drinks. Sometimes when my sleep is sorted out, the other stuff feels less horrible.
I find it helps to think of everything as one less sep I have to take. Like “I was miserable today over the new house, that’s one day I never have to do again”. It helps me remember when I don’t really feel up to remembering that things will be better soon. Take care, moving house is meant to be more stressful than divorce but hopefully things are better soon.
The good news is that the tomorrow’s should get progressively better. A cold plus the holidays plus moving is lunacy. I did it four years ago. My “advantage” was that I was escaping a house where an attempted middle-of-the-night break left me with PTSD about my house and my neighborhood. So, the new house was the world’s biggest relief, and its foreignness was still upsetting. I really struggled with the smell of my new house. It STANK. But it will all get better for you, as it did for me, and in the meantime, it is okay to just feel crappy! I recommend taking whatever meds necessary to give you a good night’s sleep, and an early bedtime. Things for me are always worse at night.
One mantra, if you will, that helps me in all difficult transitions, but especially during my moves (a LOT of moves) comes from you. So if it isn’t completely annoying to have your words written back to you, I will just type “Drops in the bucket. Drops IN the bucket.”
I moved to the UK from the US a little over a year ago and I was so, so miserable at first. Everything was just sliiiiightly different from the US. People drive on the left! Grocery stores here don’t often sell cornmeal or Crisco or Tapatio sauce or decent-quality salsa (all items I consider staples)! People would look at me funny when I’d use phrases like “paper towel” or “restroom” or “trash can” or “grocery store”! All seemingly minor adjustments that shouldn’t have been a big deal at all, but added up they gave me this overwhelming sense of unfamiliarity and I was convinced I’d made a huge, huge mistake.
Now, I’m at the airport about to catch a flight to visit my family in California for the holidays, and even though I’m looking forward to seeing them, I don’t really want to leave. My new city is so pretty around the holidays! I just moved into a new apartment that I love and am in the middle of decorating! It might snow here soon, and I don’t want to miss the snow!
It took some time, but for every single thing I miss about the US, I’ve found a new thing to love here. (Still miss chips and salsa, though.)
Take your medicine.
Get to bed on time (note I’m not saying get to sleep on time, just be in bed, lying down)
Drink hot liquids for your cold.
Buy a shower curtain, or at least a liner. The perfect one will show up soon.
The kitchen: what works best for me is to stand at the dishwasher and imagine putting something away. Where did I put it? It is the idea that I already decided where it goes that makes the difference.
The other thought is, ask your children to unpack the kitchen. You aren’t going to remember where anything is anyway, might as well have someone else do this particular job.
Sending love.
Oh Swistle, I am so sorry you are going through this! It is SUCH big life changing thing, to move.
Your mover story (what the hell?!?!) reminds me of when we moved in here. My dear mother gave me the gift of having a cleaning service come in and clean our house top to bottom before we moved in. We coordinated it with our moving truck and new bed delivery specifically so that no furniture would impede the cleaning. And they were hours late, my husband was sitting in a completely empty house for hours waiting. And when they arrived they were harried and time pressured and then charged us extra because they’d sent four people to do a two person job – which they did to ensure the work would be done in the shortened time frame. And after they’d gone I discovered they didn’t clean the tops of the kitchen cabinets which were inches thick in dust. I was so angry and upset and I remember crying and feeling very acutely like our house wasn’t our own. It’s so silly to remember how upset I was then but I WAS. And I remember too discovering little quirks – like the baseboards in the living room being GREEN and the doors to the dining room being hung wrong so they neither open nor close all the way and the kick panels in the kitchen being missing and no place to put the kitchen trash can. UGH. What had we DONE, moving into such a horrid place?! And of course it is all fine now and I eventually cleaned the tops of the cabinets myself but oh how rough it was to make the leap from comfortable and known to brand new and foreign.
My husband broke down in tears when the screen door of our new house fell off the track. He is not one regularly taken to tears. Certainly not by screen doors. (It’s 2 years later and it hopped off the track again in fall after I asked him to finally fix it this summer and he seems not to give one crap about the goddamn door.) sorry. Venting aside.
Moving is fundamentally disruptive. If you are someone who craves routine and familiarity and safe spaces, and is taken from than and tasked with setting and maintaining the familial mindset while moving from the favorite place into an unknown…it’s killer. Be easy on yourself. Give it time. It’s OK to feel your feelings every day, but it’s also OK to Mary Poppins “spit, spot” and get the day’s task done. I read today’s post first and it sounds like you are well on your way!
The butter sticks were a different size? That’s just stupid and I would freak out too. I regularly have meltdowns on the first day of any trip or vacation – trips and vacations that I want to go on, that I look forward to eagerly. It’s like a minor PTSD episode from dislocating myself and it invariably passes by the second day and then I have a great time. Unless I have a fresh cold. A fresh cold in a new house purely sucks.
I’m a bit late, but in case someone should find this helpful in the future: the last time we moved, I wrote the name of a group of kitchen stuff (kids’ dishes, food storage containers, spatulas, silverware, mugs, potholders, etc.) on a post-it note and stuck it to the cabinet or drawer where I thought I would like to put that stuff. Then, as I kept going, if I realized that thing wouldn’t work there or would work better somewhere else, I could just move the post-it instead of needing to move all of the actual stuff. Added bonus: I left the post-it notes up for months so that everyone could find things/knew where to put things away.