Shedding another address
I’ve moved house 16 times. It seems I’m rather commitment-phobic regarding addresses, rarely staying in one place for more than two years. Not necessarily by design—things just happened, as things do.
And I’m about to do it again.
It’s commonly touted that moving house is one of life biggest stressors, second only to the death of a loved one. I don’t know who started that adage, but clearly, it was someone with too much stuff. Way too much stuff. Moving is laborious and tiresome, yes. But, far from a life-altering stress. Unless you have too much stuff.
It can’t be that I’m just ‘used to it’ or ‘good at it’, either. Because the annoyance and fatigue of the task hasn’t lessened each time.
This move is a bit different though, for two reasons. Both them short and loud.
I had both of my children during the last move too, but they were young enough then—a baby and a toddler—that they were more like pets. They didn’t come with full-sized furniture, like beds and dressers. Back then, all their clothes fit into a bag, and as long as they had a blanket and chew toy, they were happy.
Now they’re happy as long as they have their balloons, their books, their Hotwheels cars, their DVDs, their bikes, their wooden trolley, their dry-erase boards, their soccer balls, their puzzles, their pens, their chalk, their alphabet cards…and just about everything else we own.
It makes it very hard to pack.
But I’m getting there. There are so many boxes around me all the time that the world is starting to look like Minecraft, but I’m getting there.
And by the end of next week, if all goes well and to schedule, I’ll be winding down in the downhill stretch—in a larger house, with an extra room for the kids’ junk so I don’t have to keep it all in my pretty and grownup living room, and orchard views. Well, one orchard view. Unless I look at it twice.
What I’m most excited about though—and this should come as little surprise to those who know me well—is the high-speed internet connection awaiting. I haven’t yet experienced anything faster than ADSL2+, and with current browser technologies and digital offerings over multiple devices, the performance of broadband at that speed is reminiscent of dial-up anyway.
I was excited to get my new fibre-capable modem+router yesterday. It looks like a giant black tampon tower. For ultimate data absorbency. I love the cylindrical antennae-less design. Most other routers I see look like a spider lying on its back. But my one is so pretty…
A pretty router, for a pretty house, and a pretty life…
For hopefully at least two years.
01 Jul 2016
What kind of orchard is it, and do you get to mount daring midnight raids on the fruit thereof?
I moved every two or three months in my childhood, but in the last twelve years I’ve only lived in four houses, so I’m clearly slowing down with age.
But we are planning a move soon – hopefully! – and while I wouldn’t call moving house a major life stressor, trying to buy a house is definitely up there.
I’ve been downsizing in fits and starts over the last year or so and I’m still horrified by how much we have – even without littlies.
02 Jul 2016
At the moment, it’s a sparse and skeletal orchard. I don’t think it’s growing anything beyond ghost stories at the moment. I’m sure I’ll be able to tell you at a later season though. My guess would be apples. Because we get a lot of that around here.
I would imagine, yes, buying a house would be considerably more stressful! Just imagining it makes my stomach turn inside out! And of course, my historical stickability to addresses (or lack thereof) turns me off such an investment strategy anyway. Not when I’m not prepared or inclined to deal with flipping houses every two years, nor with handling tenants!