Firsts

I moved cross country during a global pandemic. I am that type of crazy. However, I do have my reasons, so hear me out. This move has been a year in the making with AJ and I successfully handling the long distance thing for that long. There is no way I could jeopardize the beautiful place that we secured back in January.  I refused to believe any other reality.

A week prior to my move, of course my car decided to start making interesting noises. I am so grateful for the Rover dealership I work with in Chicago. They were super generous and got me in immediately with a promise to race against time until my move date. Truly wonderful service consultants that really put their customers first.

The plan was (thankfully) to have AJ drive up to Chicago on the 19th, pack on the 20th, and then drive straight through on the 21st. Had we made the decision to fly him up and just drive down together, we probably would have been screwed rearranging our plans. Our plans changed very rapidly with rumors of a national lockdown afloat in the near future. We moved our plans up and entire day and cushioned an extra day to pack.

All of my things had to fit into a 6X12 U-Haul trailer. This was like Tetris level 1,000,000. We quickly figured out that most of my furniture has random sizes and don’t fit nicely like puzzle pieces, so we had to be extremely creative. Whatever could be taken apart was disassembled so we could reassemble in the new place. We had to lay out all of our “playing pieces” where we could see them so we could make the best judgment in loading to get it to fit. We finally got everything to fit with the exception of two furniture pieces that were more “nice to have” but not a necessity.

“I was an anxiety-driven nervous wreck”

We had everything packed and ready to go the night before. I had never felt more prepared for a move in my entire life (and I have moved like a dozen times). I was an anxiety-driven nervous wreck. Guys, I had never moved across the country before. The furthest I have ever moved was to Champaign, IL for my college degree and even that was pretty far. I have never driven in a car longer than 8 hours, so I had no idea how I would handle this. I have also never driven that far with a cat before. The compounded “firsts” were a lot to mentally process… on top of our global pandemic.

I’ll spare you the details of the drive, but we made it work. It took us 18 hours. Three hours longer than it normally takes AJ on his own. I took way too many bathroom breaks and making sure the cat was comfortable was probably more cause for the breaks just so she could get out of her carrier to relieve herself. I watched my trailer in my rearview mirror fishtail a few times. AJ said it was rather “squirrely” and the excessive wind probably had something to do with it too.

We arrived at midnight and realized we had no idea where to park our trailer. We were definitely bickering but like in a whisper. I’m sure you know the type. We were tired, stressed, and just wanted to get inside our new place. We unsuccessfully tampered with the thermostat since it was unreasonably cold that night and our big blankets were packed away in our boxes. We slept like crap until our movers showed up the next morning at 8am.

Here’s where the story takes a turn for the better: our stuff was moved up to our place in less than an hour; we unpacked and reassembled everything in less than three days; both of our pets love the new place; we have made dinner together every night; we popped open a bottle of real champagne our first day; we found all the groceries we needed to kickstart our fridge and pantry; and our porch will definitely be utilized on a regular basis with how beautiful our view is.

I think the surprising part about this move wasn’t the physical toll that it took on my body but rather the mental. I anticipated the heavy lifting, the long drive, and the X. What I didn’t realize what would weigh on me most was: the coordinating everyone and everything leading up to the move, the decision making while packing, the judgment calls on the road, the mental entertainment for the drive; and most importantly the goodbyes I said to my family. These are all things that my brain didn’t register the levity of until everything had calmed down.

So tell me, for those of you that have moved across the country, how did you handle it mentally? Did a feeling of overwhelm come over you all at once or did it show up occasionally? Did you anticipate it? How did you prepare for it if you did? I don’t have the answers to these questions because my answer is to just power through (which is definitely not healthy). What can I learn from you?