I’ve moved a lot in my adult life. My husband and I have lived in 10 homes in the 14 years we’ve been married. In the last decade, we have lived in five states. The longest I’ve stayed in one home was 2 years and 4 months in Fort Hood, Texas. The shortest was three months in an RV in Yellowstone National Park. The longest distance I’ve ever moved was 2,000 miles from Fort Rucker, Alabama to Eden, Utah. The shortest distance was from an upstairs apartment to a downstairs apartment in the same building in Bountiful, Utah.
For two moves, movers packed and loaded my stuff. Other times I have packed my own stuff. (Usually, friends have helped pack some of my stuff.) Moving companies have driven my stuff between states twice. All the other moves were done with my husband driving the moving van. I have moved with no children, with two children, with three children, and with four children.
In all these moves, I have learned that there are at least three irrefutable laws of Moving. These are like the laws of Physics. You can’t escape them. What goes up, must go down. That kind of thing.
Here are the Three Irrefutable Laws of Moving and some pointers on how to work with them.
1. You will hate all your stuff at some point.
This is the most important rule. There will be a point sometime in your move where you look at all your stuff and realize that you wish you could just leave it all behind. I can’t tell you when this moment will happen. It may happen when you are packing, or when you are loading the truck, or maybe it won’t happen until you unpack, but it will happen. Our most recent move was from Pocatello to Twin Falls in August of 2019. While I was getting everything ready for the move, I had a friend on Facebook post a picture of her storage unit. There had been a fire and many of her things were ruined. I knew this was a tragedy, but honestly, my very first response was to feel jealous. I wished a fire would ruin most of my stuff so I didn’t have to move it.
The trick to working with this rule is to do some serious decluttering before you pack. Then continue that decluttering as you box things up. This is the time to do some serious Marie Kondo questioning. In addition to asking yourself, “Does this spark joy?” think “Will I be happy to see the thing again when I unpack it or will I wonder why I thought this junk was worth moving?”
For me, I have found it helpful to jettison furniture before our big moves. Most of our furniture is made up of second-hand finds so none of it is really worth moving. We can easily replace it on the other side of the move. In the past, I’ve tried to pair our big stuff down by half. So if we have two couches, I will get rid of one and move the other. Obviously, there are some things that are worth hanging onto like beds, but even those can be reevaluated. On two separate moves, I gave away cribs before the move and upgraded the child to a twin-sized bed when we moved into our new home.
2. The closer you get to the day of the move, the more civilization breaks down in your home.
As more of your things get packed up, you will realize that you are less able to go about your normal routine. Your pots and pans are packed so you can’t cook. Your bed is taken down so you are sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Your washer and dryer are unhooked so you can’t do laundry. Your TV is boxed up so your kids have nothing to keep them occupied while you are trying to get things done.
This is the time to admit that things won’t look like they normally do. Plan to eat cereal and pizza for a few days. Find out where the laundry mat is in your town. Consider sleeping at a hotel for the last night or two. Really lean into your support system. Ask a friend if your kids can spend a few hours at their house while you finish packing. Have someone come over and help vacuum. Heck, even hire a cleaning service to do your final clean for you. Trust me, you will not survive this stage without help.
3. You will never have as much time or energy for all the “last things” as you think you do.
No matter how good your intentions are, you will never accomplish every “last thing” you wish you could. There is just too much time critical stuff to do. You have to pack, you have to cancel utilities at your current home and start them at your future one, you have to clean, you have to pack more, you have to pick up a moving truck, you have to coordinate movers and childcare, you have to cook with half of your stuff packed, you have to cook with all your stuff packed, you have to figure out where you are sleeping after all the beds are packed, you have to figure out how to put your car on a trailer behind the truck…I could go on. It never ends. A move will suck up all your time and energy.
When my husband and I were moving from Logan to Bountiful, Utah, I had plans to make cookies to take to all my co-workers on my last day of work. I waited to pack the baking ingredients and pans so I could make the cookies. Well, I never had time to do that. I ended up moving with a bag of flour and a cookie sheet in the passenger seat of my car.
When I was moving from Texas to Alabama, I thought it would be cute to put together little bags of Life Saver’s Candy to give to all the “Life Saver” friends who helped with the move. I even bought little teal bags to put the candies in. Sounds easy right? But time just evaporated and the little candies never made it into the bags or handed out to a single helper. My kids and I ate the candy a few weeks later in Alabama.
I don’t want to discourage you. There will be time for some last things. Just realize that you probably won’t do everything you hoped to – especially as you get closer to the day of the move. So if you want to have a goodbye party or do one last fun thing in your town, plan it for a few days before you start packing up the big stuff.
Now that you know about these laws, I hope they will help you as you plan the details for your next move. I can’t promise that your move will be easy – I’m not sure there is such a thing. But it can certainly be less stressful if you are aware of these laws.
Good luck.
