Monday, October 20, 2008

Reflections on our move


Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. -Henry David Thoreau
It kind of makes you think, doesn't it? Moving is a pain. We've all done it and we wonder why we have so much stuff. As soon as it's over, we hope we never have to do it again (or at least not for a very, very long time).
We are having a particularly unpleasant moving experience, mainly because it's not over yet. We packed up our house in the middle of May and we are still fighting with the moving company that is supposed to be sending the rest of our stuff.
And as I feel my blood pressure rising in dealing with crooked companies, I wonder about the true cost of our move. Sure, it was expensive to ship our household over here but even that feels small compared to the cumulative time, energy, and stress involved in the whole process. I'm talking about weeks of sorting, days of packing, days of unpacking, days of wrangling with a company that won't call me back!
After talking with a friend who took a decidedly different approach to her international move last month I have to really consider which is better. She went through a painful but liberating separation from most of her belongings. She and her husband packed several suitcases and their two cats and moved to a new continent. They are certainly missing some of the creature comforts but it doesn't take much time to clean her apartment and she can be off to her language lessons or exploring her new city. We are both learning some lessons in our new lives, maybe the same lessons for different reasons...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Next time use Aardvark Aaron's Store It Your Own Self Self Storage Company

cortina said...

i've moved so much in our lives. to finland, to algonquin, to norway, to mexico, to norway, to algonquin, to chicago (3 different apartments), to norway, to downers grove, to chicago, to algonquin, to norway...i think that's right...anyway, we've gotten to the point where we see the benefits of moving- going through you're junk each time and getting rid of most of it because there isn't any more room left in my parents' garage! (by the way, just got off the phone with them and they say hi!).