The Move

I recently got a note from a friend announcing that they were moving cross country. It's a dramatic gesture, and a uniquely American one. People in other countries migrate. We embark.

It's been thirty months since we made our own cross country move. At times stressful, exciting and harrowing, it can still feel like we are on this grand adventure and will be forced to return to real life at any time.

But we are getting to the point that this is real life. Our youngest has now officially spent more time living in Seattle than she did in Maryland, and the oldest is only a year away from the same. I found myself indifferent to the beginning of the Ravens' season. Slowly we are more in tune with the local weather trends (the start of Vitamin D supplement season) than we are those back east (mold allergy season).

So, given you ever undertake such an adventure as we have, I can now say there are five things you should know about moving cross country:

1. It’s twice as expensive as you expect.

There is the initial move, which will always be pricier than expected. There is so much that is unforeseen about a big move, and each incident will cost you time or money. We had the ability to replace lost toys and damaged furniture, or we could have waited for reimbursement. A move usually includes repositioning of a vehicle or two, and you will never accurately guess how much gas it takes to cross this vast American landscape until you do it a few times.

There are some hidden expenses, and they really depend on how much you bring with you. Not so much the stuff you drag along, but the expectations. A weird example: fish is plentiful here in the Northwest, but not the freshwater fish we can round out a meal with on the east coast. You pay a premium. If we expect to eat the same, we pay more. Apples are cheap. Corn is not. Gas is quite expensive, and our driving habits have changed a lot. Housing is really expensive, and our expectations about living space have been adjusted. So it’s really that you have to:

2. Know what you’re bringing with you.

The stuff you bring can be minimized. Boxes are expensive to move. Furniture is heavy.

Not expectations and habits. They’re light as a feather while they still fit. You drag them everywhere and, if you don’t examine yourself, they sneak up on you. Living in the west, I can never walk out of a movie and catch the end of a baseball or football game at the bar unless it's an insane overtime. I didn't realize that was a habit until it was gone.

It’s been a weird change to have an hour more nighttime during the winter and foggy mornings that can be so dark it doesn't seem like the sun is ever coming up. I knew the legendary Pacific Northwest climate was something to get used to, but my expectation was drizzle, not living in a mossy cave half the year.

I’ve had to honestly ask myself “what do you want?” quite a few times in my life. Only since moving have I asked the followup, “did you expect something different?” A surprising number of times, I have said yes. I want to be ready to move as opportunities arise, but I expected to be more comfortable quicker in a new apartment. I want to be home with the kids, but I never expected how much of my personality was tied up in working outside the home. I wanted to see myself change into a more deliberate, thoughtful person, but I expected a grand gesture like a cross country move to be a magic bullet. It really is these missed expectations that are where it is easiest to fall into old routines. To long for easier times. To be homesick.

There, I said it. Homesick. No matter how bold the adventurer, after a while, it happens to us all. It can take the form of actual longing to return, or just a deep seated unsettledness at the hand life has dealt. It comes at me when I need to escape the ever shrinking confines of the apartment. The wanderlust starts, and suddenly there pencilled plans for a road trip that passes through the East Coast.

Of course, in the middle of feeling sorry for myself:

3. Someone will always pick up your accent.

And usually they are from Philadelphia.

But if it’s not your accent, it’s your demeanor. If it’s not your demeanor, it’s some other little quirk. I once got called out in Canada for ordering hot tea. “American, there’s only one kind of tea,” they said. I assured them that there are at least three kinds of tea - hot, iced, and sweet - and they could go to Hell.

4. The Move is only one part.

I have tried putting a button on this whole transition a couple of times. It has never seemed to have the right bookend, the right coda, the right final scene.

And that’s because there isn’t one. There is no tidy bow to put on this package. I struggle every day dealing with the life we have now. I struggled every day I was in Maryland with a difficult commute and a distant job. I struggled every day we were transitioning to living here. There’s no difference, you still have a life to live.

Let me back up, though. There was a Before, and there is an After. Between them was The Move. The struggles during The Move were very different than they were on either side. We were managing to clear out the old and bring in the new. And when that’s done, you find yourself with the new job of establishing a home thousands of miles away from the safety net of family and friends.

The Move is such a unique experience that other necessary human activities are put on hiatus. While The Move is on, so much feels superficial. You contact friends - new and old - at arm’s length. People give you a pass. In many ways, you make due during The Move.

Then The Move is over. It’s not that you stop adventuring. The Move ends when you start getting back to being aspirational. During The Move, you are so busy engaging the future that you don’t have time to come up with any more. Of course, aspiration is the thing that pushes someone to take on a crazy relocation or completely new lifestyle. It takes the end of The Move - the end of the charge into the abyss - to start wanting, expecting, AND working towards something better.

Once that happens, you realize:

5. Home is where you have made it.

There are lots of songs written about finding home in another person or making home out of the family you find. I like this one:

However, I don’t think they have it quite right. Sure, you need to want to work towards a home. But you only know you have built one upon reflection. You don’t have to leave it. You just can see it’s there after you’ve put some work in. You don’t get a home by looks alone.

In many ways, that idea of home is a self-fulfilling, know-it-when-you-got-it kind of a thing. And a dangerous, more difficult place to leave.

But it rewards times where there is a lot of work put in just to get the new place set up. That, of course, is the upshot to moving far away. It’s so much more work than you expect. Some comes from the things you have to leave, some comes from the places - emotional and physical - you have to go. None of it’s easy or predictable. And none of it’s worthless if it results in a place called home.