About this time a year ago, I sat on the cold hardwood floor of an empty townhouse in Raleigh, North Carolina crying my eyes out.
The movers had just drove off with the last of our things, leaving desolate the place we had called home for the last decade. Ten years of some of the best memories of my life in the first home we had ever purchased together.
Our first and only child was brought home from the hospital into the warm and welcoming space we had created in the nursery adorned with Eric Carle’s “The Hungry Caterpillar.” Over time we added two cats and a dog, taken on many home projects and planted roots we didn’t know we had in the local community.
It wasn’t just the memories we were leaving behind, it was a very safe and comfortable existence. I had a job that was going fine and my wife and son were thriving in their daily lives, all the bills were paid, and food was on the table every day.
Not everything was fantastic. The job required shift work which left me exhausted and both of us were commuting about an hour each way, most of that stuck in gridlock, inching through stoplight after stoplight. Despite that, I absolutely loved the city and everything it had to offer and could see myself spending a very long time there.
When the opportunity came to move to the coast for a promotion that would put me in my dream job and take me out of constant shift work and traffic, it was hard to resist. As the reality set in of what it would mean to move, it was certainly a very exciting opportunity, but it wasn’t a no brainer, at least not to us.
From the outside, this was a match made in heaven. Dream job for me, promotion, no shift work, no traffic, coastal living and oh by the way, closer to relatives on both sides of the family. In the moment, however, things seemed so much more complicated.
Were we making the right decision? Would my wife find a job in our new location? She was in her dream job now, why leave? How would our son react to moving to a new school in the middle of the year? Would we find a suitable house to live in? Could we afford it?
We had built a decade worth of friendships and invested so much into the community. On top of that the effort of moving seemed daunting. We had doctors and dentists we liked and local shops and restaurants we adored. I started clinging to the smallest things in order to try and convince myself not to move.
The pressure of all these things came together like a vice grip as the days to our move counted down. I actually started my job three months prior and had been commuting back and forth on weekends. The differences between the locations were stark. Would my family like it where we were going? What if I am making the wrong choice. What if I had just thrown away everything that was good in my life and could never get it back?
Irrationality increased to the point of shear panic leading up to the days of the move. Everything where we were going seemed so unsettled. Everything where we had lived for so long was so comfortable, but as each day passed I felt it slipping away.
When move day came, we had found a new house (now we were paying for two houses and dropping one income) and it was my job to have as much set up beforehand as possible. New carpet, new paint, new appliances. This wasn’t our home, but if it was ever going to be, I had to start putting our stamp on it now.
A new coffee bar for my wife was the absolute first thing I put together. If we were going to get through this, coffee was indispensable. My parents lived in the area and they were key in helping us make the transition. Having a support network in place already was paying dividends. My co-workers were just as key. Several of them just completing moves themselves. Their words of encouragement and welcome really sustained me in those first few months.
“A year from now, you won’t even remember half of the issues you were worried about.”
“We’ll see”, I thought.
So five days before Christmas, we packed up the rest of what was left, the cats and the dog and left our life behind. Or so we thought.
The first two nights were spent on air mattresses but we had our Christmas decorations which I had brought down ahead of time and we spent that first weekend decorating our new house for Christmas, even if there wasn’t any furniture. It felt good to see things that were ours in our new space.
Next came the furniture. It is only when you move, that you realize how much stuff you accumulate over the years and really shouldn’t hang on to. Pretty soon, it started to look like our house. Sure the shell was different, but everything in it was the same.
Over the next several months my son got settled into his new school and began to make new friends immediately. Out of all of us, he was the one leading the way, accepting changes and taking things in stride. This was a huge relief to me and I couldn’t be more proud of him.
By February of course the pandemic hit and we were sidelined from really exploring our new community to the fullest. Still we pressed on and over time, my wife was able to find employment, I settled into working both at home and in my new office and at times we have been able to enjoy the company of relatives and walks on the beach.
A year later, almost all of the worries we had have been largely resolved. Everyday life feels as normal as possible in a pandemic, and it is clear that this is now home. While they seemed like major mountains to climb at the time, the barriers to doing this were not as high as they presented themselves in my own mind.
That being said, it’s also important to recognize that there is no magic pill. Not everything is going to be resolved. We still love some things that Raleigh offered a lot more. Others we prefer here. All the worries never go away, they are just different. Traffic is no longer an issue, but taking care of the yard is.
The trick is to roll with the opportunities that life presents for you and be willing to adapt to the changes as you go along. Some basics, if properly maintained will always be there. The love you have for your family and they for you is paramount. The systems you have in place for your life, your habits, your routines, they all come with you. Eventually you realize it is not the things you have or the place you live that makes you who you are, it’s what’s inside that counts.
It is important to remember that in life we make thousands of decisions each and every day. Each one has the chance to make our lives better or worse. We can’t let some decisions seem vastly larger than others because we are afraid of the outcome.
Yes, moving was a MASSIVE decision that required a ton of thought and debate. That being said we can make a much smaller decision, such as not taking care of our body which could result in us ending up with many less years on the planet, but we don’t think twice about it.
The point is that each decision we come across, big or small, is an opportunity to improve ourselves. As long as we make more decisions that result in the positive rather than the negative, then there is no other option than to better our lives. No matter what decisions you have made to this point, rest assured that tomorrow you will have hundreds of more chances to move in the right direction.
