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Posted on 07 September 2007
Wise Blogger Lizzie Green said:

Moving on up

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I seem to have spent a large proportion of the last few weeks moving stuff. Furniture, boxes, bags, suitcases… All the stuff that makes a life. That makes an empty house into a home. And you always have more of it than you think.
I’ve been helping my boyfriend move into a new flat. Most of his stuff was all in one room, so it didn’t seem like it would be a huge job when we started. But as soon as you start packing things – taking books off shelves, taking clothes out of the wardrobe, taking CDs from their rack – the quantity of stuff appears to triple and suddenly you’re stood in front a mammoth pile of boxes and bags, wondering how on earth you’re going to fit it all into one tiny Micra.
But we did – miraculously. And now all that stuff is waiting to be unpacked and for new homes to be found for it in a brand new apartment. This is the fun bit.
Moving house is supposed to be one of the most stressful activities there is – it’s up there with starting a new job, having a baby and getting divorced. I guess that’s because the process of moving – as well as being a lot of hard work – can be very unsettling. We uproot ourselves from our home, our place of belonging, and plant ourselves somewhere new and unknown.
I worked out recently that I’ve moved house at least 12 times in my life so far – so I guess that’s a lot of stress. But I think what I’ve learned from all those moves, all those upheavals and life-changes, is that our sense of feeling ‘at home’ does not depend so much on where we are but on who we’re with. ‘Home is where the heart is’, as the old saying goes. But for me, it’s not just about the people and place, but also about the ‘stuff’ we bring with us – because these things are what connect us with our past and provide us with a comforting sense of continuity.
But then, we’re always being told to ‘declutter’ our lives and ‘hold lightly’ to the things we own, so maybe I’m wrong about this. I don’t know…
I think, though, that if we see our lives as a journey, and the places we live as resting places along the way, perhaps we would all travel a bit more lightly, and worry a little less when we need to move on to the next place. Because where we belong is on the road, with our fellow travellers, and home is what we carry with us.