Hi All,
First I just want to express bucket loads of gratitude to this group, for without you all I would not have been able to desqualor the house I lived in for over 7 years, went through a divorce in, etc.
Many of you know that I did a very slow lead up to being able to move, which began months ago with sending my chickens to live with a friend in the country, and with continued paring things down, all while still creating a space that worked for us to live in. Again, could not have done that without this group. You made it ok for me to have the space I wanted to live in *right now*, realizing that at some point in the not very distant future I was probably going to move.
The packing went ok, was definitely stressful, but worked out ok. That got accomplished mostly by doing little bits at a time, working on it day by day. Then the last week or so there was a full scale push. This was also punctuated by visits from haulers to remove tons and tons of stuff, as well as craigslisting many things to get rid of them too.
I should probably make a special pitch right here: if you need to have things hauled away, I recommend haulers who specialize in foreclosure cleanup. The folks I worked with had great experience taking a mixed load of my junk in the garage and figuring out exactly where it should go--recyclers, local gardening products place that takes wood, Goodwill, the dump, etc. (I don't think you can call them into a situation with squalor involving rotten food, pests, animal waste, etc. but I don't really know. When we came to two ants' nests in the garage, that was my job to remove, as they wouldn't touch it.)
The packing was much easier because most things already had a "home". In previous moves I always had about 10 boxes of unsorted crap from years and years ago--the decluttering over the last year had eliminated all of those. I did end up moving roughly 3 boxes of random junk, unsorted papers, but they were all from the last *6 months*, not stretching back over 10 years. So clearly I'm not perfect, but much improved.
When moving day arrived *everything was ready to go*. My movers were actually a bit suprised, but happy. Even though we got rid of many things in preparation for going from 1500 sq ft to 1100 sq ft, on moving day I realized we hadn't gotten rid of enough.
Mostly I just want to provide a perspective of how the packing and moving was different from all other moves because the house was in a decent condition to start with. Not perfect, but decent.
The struggle I have faced since the move in is very much like the struggle to do the initial desqualor. I somehow feel as if the "state of the house" is my fault, and all that same negative self-talk comes rushing back to me. It's been hard to stay motivated to unpack. I am very pattern reliant, and I had patterns finally established helping me to keep the old house in a reasonable condition--the move makes me feel as if I have totally eliminated all the rhythyms I previously relied upon.
Mind you, I'm also trying to coordinate my daughter's summer fun, put in a full work week + contract work to help finance the move, going to AA meetings, and get the dog settled on a potty schedule since we no longer have a proper yard. (She is doing great by the way. The calming pheromone DAP has been *fantastic*! We do multiple short walks every day.)
But I'm also noticing the pull to "be distracted" and try to focus on anything else but unpack--suddenly I want to date, I've even had thoughts about gaming again. (Have told my sponsor about all this, and am going to more meetings per week in order to attend to the craving to distract from my real life.) Then when I do get started with unpacking, I get terrified and confused about where to put everything. The kitchen was partially unpacked before the big move day, so that wasn't quite so bad.
But for some reason I simply couldn't unload any of my clothes into my closet or dresser. I finally did that yesterday, but felt like a failure the whole time.
The biggest challenge is to simply unpack and "let it be ok to just put stuff where ever in order to get them out of boxes, realizing that I will probably go back a second time and actually finalize home spaces for everything. I don't know if that's the right way or the wrong way, but honestly, I don't have it all figured out and if I wait for that to happen we might be living out of boxes for the next 5 years.
Any thoughts or tips people have on how to unpack, how to organize in a new home are all appreciated. This is a *good* move. But I find that my mind doesn't really know how to deal with good change any better than it knows what to do with bad change. When I list out the amazing things we have:
-2 blocks walk to daughter's school
-6 blocks from neighborhood outdoor pool, which we just got a membership to
-staying decently cool in the heat
-5 minutes from an AA meeting that meets 5 days per week!
-10 minutes drive from many of daughter's friends
-5 minutes from grocery store with pharmacy!!
-much reduced drive to my favorite hiking spot
-surrounded by trees and hills that make it feel like we're almost living in the country
-it's turned out to be a blessing that I don't have a yard as I really don't want to take care of one!
-lots of nearby grassy fields and nature paths to walk doggy
-very close to wonderfully heated indoor pool (nice for winter)
I could go on and on. The whole thing is a blessing. I just want to feel far less afraid and confused while I do this.
