On The Move Again

I am moving at the end of this month.  This will be the fifth move in less than eight years for my husband and me.  It seems even worse when I see it written down. We are not young adults in our twenties with some clothes, a computer and a bed.  We are grown-ups with lots of stuff.  Lots and lots of stuff. About 13,000 pounds actually despite my many donations to the thrift store. I know what that amount of stuff feels like because I have packed and unpacked every item, each move, with my own hands.  When my husband brought up the idea of moving last month, the thought was unbearable to me, the memory of the last move was still fresh in my mind. The muscle memory was still there, all that bending, lifting, and the screeching of the tape gun, the stacks and stacks of packing paper. Ugh. But life wasn't always like this.

We lived in the first house we purchased for three years, then came a baby and the move to a larger house where we stayed five years and had another child.  The universe aligned and we had a chance to buy a view home and turn it into our dream home and spend fifteen happy years there. This was the longest period that either my husband or myself had spent anywhere. When our youngest son entered his final year of high school we were ready to move on from the suburbs and head back to the city.  The only problem with that was the difference in house values. For what we sold our large view home for in the 'burbs we could purchase a two bed, two bath apartment in Vancouver. So we decided to rent. That's where the trouble began. Selling a large home can be difficult, it took us six months, but giving your notice on a rental is easy. Thirty days and you are gone.

ah, the smell of new
boxes!

We stayed almost two and a half years in the first rental before Ted found a view home for rent he had to have. We moved. The kids were both gone so we had gotten rid of what felt like pounds and pounds of belongings when they went but it still felt like I was packing up a three ring circus.
The new home was lovely, the view stupendous, so nice in fact that after ten months we were given an eviction notice by the owner who wanted to move back in.  She couldn't find any where else to live that she liked as well. Our first eviction notice. We had to be out by the end of January, a terrible time to be looking for a place and an even more terrible time to actually be moving. Happy New Year everyone, pass the packing boxes.

Therein lies one of the downsides to renting, you are at the mercy of the owner. Our next move proved that out as well. We found a home with a more modest view and many, many stairs. Living there was like living on a Stairmaster. I developed buns of steel and after two and a half years grew weary of hauling my groceries up two long flights of stairs to the kitchen, steel buns or not.  I told our rental manager that we would not be renewing our lease and she said, "that's great, because the owners are moving back in!" They were supposed to have moved permanently to China but "surprise!" So we couldn't have stayed even if we had wanted to. Out came the boxes I had stored in the crawlspace. I never give away boxes, you can appreciate why.
This takes us to our current home which we have lived in for 18 months. I could happily stay here another year, not because I love the house so much but because I am so tired of moving. Really, really tired of moving.  My husband is unhappy in our current place and will not stop looking for another rental so he has agreed to help more with the move and I have very reluctantly agreed to go.

On top of my own moves I have helped my mother with her seven moves in the last seven and a half years. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, apparently. In the last decade there has been around 25 moves between my siblings, my two children and my mother, add our five and we are at 30 or more as a family not counting nieces and nephews. That's insanity. And a lot of boxes and tape.

My siblings seem to be staying put for now, I'm hoping my mother does, too but I'm not counting on it. My children don't require my physical help with their moves so that just leaves us. My husband thinks he will love our new place for years to come but I am too jaded now to believe that. Plus we are still at the mercy of the owner who can chose to evict us.  I am thrilled by the recent drop in home prices in Vancouver, (sorry, to those that own one) and am dreaming one day of a place of my own that doesn't have a stack of folded boxes in the basement waiting to be refilled. Someone once commented to me that I must really enjoy moving since I do it so often. I don't but I AM getting good at it. Gotta go, the tape gun is calling me.